


The Doctor's Assistant

by Of_Princes_and_Savages



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Stargate Universe
Genre: Anyelle, F/M, If you haven't seen it then watch it already, If you've seen Secretary (2002) you know what's up, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Inspired by a Movie, Mild Sexual Content, Rushbelle, bdsm tones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-15 19:36:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7235785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Of_Princes_and_Savages/pseuds/Of_Princes_and_Savages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle French is trying to get her life together after a lengthy hospitalization. When she manages to obtain a job as the assistant for Doctor Rush, she looks forward to being bored with bringing coffee and answering the phone. But then things begin to grow beyond their prescribed relationship as college professor and assistant...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I. Getting Out

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by finally sitting down and watching _Secretary_ [2002], and a direct result of Maplesyrup not being able to talk me out of it. I need to get Internet-Friends that can tell me, "Don't start a new fic!" Then again...read the Rushbelle goodness.

It was a pleasant Sunday morning in California when Belle was released from the institution. Early spring. The manicured lawns and the austere flowerbeds of the hospital front almost looked cheerful and comfortable.

The same could not be said for Belle, who wasn’t exactly depressed but a little bit uncomfortable, honestly. She’d started getting used to the place: Breakfast at eight, classes at two, therapy by four, and asleep at ten.

A simple, steady routine. She was reluctant to leave simple and steady.

But Dr. Hopper, a tall, red-haired psychiatrist with wire-rimmed glasses and a kind smile, had faith in her. He gave her a warm hug and said, “If there’s anything you need Belle, don’t be afraid to get in touch. I’m always here to listen.”

Another thing Belle would miss: Someone listening to her.

"I know, thank you Dr. Hopper," Belle mumbled against his shoulder.

Dr. Hopper gave her another friendly smile and walked back inside the hospital, his scarf fluttering in the slight breeze. Belle sat down on the bench by the curb, her battered leather suitcase at her feet, and waited. Barring any unforeseen incidents, her father should be rumbling up in the delivery van sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

Belle French, by most accounts, wasn't a very special girl. She was a pretty little thing when her auburn hair wasn't falling in her face, if she could look you in the eye you'd see the bluest blue in existence living in her irises. If she could manage to talk to you, you could pick out an Australian accent that hadn't faded since they moved to California from Melbourne when she was ten.

But it was very hard to look and care about that with her hair half-heartedly pulled back with a headband, dressed in a threadbare gray cardigan that flopped over her hands and a loose dress that one could generously call an A-line dress, and less generously a navy blue potato sack. Belle was certain she looked like a Victorian novel's waifish heroine, a less spirited Eliza Doolittle perhaps, or a dowdy Jane Eyre. Oh god, Belle almost smiled at this thought: When she got home, she could _read_ again.

Anything in the hospital's mental ward had to be carefully screened for suitability, because it wouldn't do to give someone like Zelena Greene a copy of _anything_ by Stephen King. Long story short, Belle was looking forward to curling up in her own bed in her own room with her friends Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.

And not long after this pleasant thought, a white van in need of a wash, with the _Game of Thorns_ logo on the side, came rattling up the circular drive. Belle wrapped her cardigan tighter around her as she grabbed her suitcase and trotted to the curb, where her father managed to open the door for her without getting out the driver's seat.

Belle actually appreciated that, because if she were given the chance to dither there on the sidewalk much longer, she might reconsider leaving just yet.

But then her father was smiling at her, his blue eyes light, and she clambered in the van.

"Hello darling! Ready to go home?" Moe French, a rather imposing older man who only seemed to share blue eyes with his petite daughter, asked as she tossed her suitcase into the back.

"Yes Papa, I am," Belle smiled back, adjusting her seatbelt. "Very ready."

"Great! I'll tell you what all you've missed, and then I've got a surprise for you."

Belle's smile wobbled. She wasn't sure if it was how her father so easily threw out the words "all you've missed" or that her father had planned a surprise for her. Probably the former, her father was a well-intentioned clod by his own admission, but...

"What sort of surprise?" she hazarded after a long pause, as the van merged into the traffic leading away from the hospital.

"Ah, well, s'pose you oughta be a _little_ prepared for it," Moe chuckled. "It's a welcome home party!"

Someone behind them in traffic there was the screech of tires and a loud horn honking. Belle couldn't decided if that was funny or pathetically ironic because it suited her mental state perfectly.

"It's just a small gathering, just a few friends," Moe carried on cheerfully, oblivious to the look on his daughter's ashen face. "It'll be nice for you to get a bit of sun, won't it? A few burgers, some grilled corn. Just what the doctor ordered, eh?"

Belle turned to look out the window, peering up at the mockingly cheerful sun overhead. "Yeah. That sounds nice Papa..."

* * *

There was maybe twenty people in the backyard by the time the "welcome back from your institutionalization party" was in full swing. Belle stopped counting after the first ten. Things were going surprisingly well, she'd managed to talk to a few other people without cracking like an eggshell of stress...even if she didn't know everyone here.

Emma Swan was more than a bit unnerving with her hard green eyes, but she was respectably polite. Her son Henry (who hadn't been invited, even by Emma, but no one had the heart to send home,) was a delight though. Ruby Lucas and her grandmother, who'd given Belle a hug and pressed a plate of chocolate cake into her hands that was very welcome, were friendly faces to see. Ruby had sort of been Belle's friend in high school. It was nice to see she'd mellowed out a little, still dressed exclusively in reds, but not as... _provocatively_.

Still, it was bit much and Belle took a step back ot the outer reaches of the party to catch a moment's peace when a semi-familiar voice behind her asked, "You enjoyin' the party, love?"

Belle turned to see Will Scarlet standing behind her. Will was a bit of a social chameleon in high school, from England where Belle was from Australia. He hung out with the social misfits, one of those leather-jacketed heartthrobs that smoked behind the school and cut class but would never do you wrong, really. Even if his grades were barely passable, he'd passed high school and college in one piece. He still wore a leather jacket and his hair buzzed short, but Will had apprently settled down a bit.

He had a job as a security officer in a JCPenny's or some department store now. Apparently he was _really_ good at sniffing out shoplifters.

"Yeah," Belle nodded shyly, playing with a stray curl of her loose hair.

Will smiled a little wider, tilting his head. "You happy to be home? Y'know, _'happy'_?"

Belle bit her lip. A nervous tic. That's what Dr. Hopper called it. They'd been discussing coping mechanisms. Healthier ones.

"I'm not...sure," she admitted slowly, and Will nodded.

"I know what you mean."

"There you are Belle!" Moe grinned widely, coming up to Belle. "My beautiful girl! I'm so...so _glad_ you're home!"

Belle spotted the shiny dark brown bottle a second before her father had her wrapped in a bear-hug.

"I thought you quit?" she mumbled against his shirt. She felt his arm shift and both hands were patting her back. She thought out the corner of her eye she saw Will holding the bottle now, with a bewildered look on his face.

"I have, oh, yeah, yeah, I have..." Moe nodded, stepping back from Belle and, indeed, retrieving his bottle.

He smelled like Budweiser. It wasn't his first.

Belle slipped away from everyone after that and fled up the stairs. There was a sparkly **WELCOME HOME** banner taped to her door that she took childish pleasure in tearing off and stuffing into the little trashcan under her desk. Childish was a good word for this room. It hadn't changed much at all since she first moved into it. The walls were light purple, a few stuffed animals lay around, and butterflies hung on the walls along with a calendar dated from last year, when she'd been committed.

It had been such a stupid accident. Moe had been getting ready for work, finishing his first beer of the day while Belle was washing dishes in the same kitchen. Belle had such a short window of time while his back was turned, and she'd taken the steak knife under the water...

To this day, what troubled Belle most was how she'd misjudged the depth. She had been doing things like this since the seventh grade, a few months after her mother passed. Cuts, burns, needles. The only explanation Belle had was that she'd tried to cut on her arm. Belle never cut her arms, not where it would show. She'd done it a few times when she was starting out and people started looking at her funny. Never said anything, but the looks were discomforting enough.

Pulling the plastic box decorated with foil Disney Princess stickers from under her mattress, (her father hadn't looked there, of course he hadn't,) Belle started pulling things out. The iodine. The bandages. Then came the tools: A lighter, cuticle scissors, a scalpel, two of those flat drill bit things she didn't know the name of, razor blades, some porcelain chips that almost looked pretty. Belle selected a triangular chip of white porcelain, with a blue floral pattern, and dragged the tip over the sharpener to hone the edge.

Then Belle hiked up her long blue skirt to bare her thigh and grasped the chip, point pressing into her skin. Just a little dragging pressure-

Raucous laughter erupted in the backyard then and Belle froze.

_No._

She hurriedly crammed everything back into the box and locked it up, stuffing it back under her mattress. She was better. She was supposed to be better now. Above _...this_. Belle took a deep breath like Dr. Hopper showed her too, and forced a smile onto her face as she brushed down her skirt. Everything was going to be fine now.

That's what Belle told herself up until that night, long after the party had ended and it was just her and her father in their small house again. Belle took a hot shower and shaved her underarms and legs for the first time in months, without cutting herself, thank you. _Everything was fine now._

Belle decided a hot cup of tea was just the thing before bed, chamomille if they had any. So she set the kettle to boil while she shuffled around, washing out the tea mugs her father left by the sink until they ran out. Belle felt proud that she didn't even regard the knife drawer with curiosity. She was _fine_.

Just as the kettle whistled and Belle took it off the heat, she heard her father raising his voice. He was on the phone when she came downstairs, but now he was shouting at whoever was on the other end of the line.

"I know what I owe you!...Yes! Yes you'll get your damned money, I just need-No you listen to me! I'll get it! All of it...Look I only need a day...Just one fucking day! That's not unreasonable!"

His speech was slurred and when Belle peered around the corner, with the kettle still in her hand, she found him sitting in front of the TV with a beer can in his hand. Just in time to see him snarl, "Well fuck you too!" and slam the landline down.

Belle slipped upstairs unnoticed with the kettle and sat on the bed. She hitched up the edge of her soft terrycloth robe and pressed her lips together.

The kettle met her soft thigh with a hiss, the sizzle of searing flesh and pain bubbling in her nerves. Belle released a choked sob and dropped her head, hissing breathes through her teeth as the burn stung under the hot metal.

Nothing was fine at all.


	2. II. The Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle, fresh out the hospital, decides to move on with her life...

The sting of the deep pink burn on the inside of Belle's thigh prickled all the next day. She puttered around the house, dusting and vacuuming and doing a few loads of laundry. Her father was a rather abysmal housekeeper.

Once the kitchen linoleum was scrubbed, the counters sanitized, and grease wiped off the spatter-zone around the stovetop, Belle picked up her well-loved copy of Jane Eyre. Ironically enough, and Belle had forgotten this, she'd bookmarked the page she'd been on before her hospitalization.

She almost started over, or put it down for her equally worn copy of Little Women, but...it was her favorite part.

Where Jane had just come into her own, modest fortune in Whitcross, had rejected the parson's offer of marriage because she didn't wish to be a perfect parson's wife. Jane returned to Mr. Rochester because she loved and cared for him, and for no other reason. It was Belle's favorite part because Jane and Mr. Rochester were married as equals, unencumbered by social standing or mad wives in the attic.

Jane made her own choice.

It inspired Belle to enroll in community college. Something to give her some credentials, something that could qualify her for a grown-up job. And in the end, between courses in typing and advanced math classes, Belle chose the math classes. She was good at them. Enjoyed them.

Oh, Belle would always be a literature-first person, but numbers were fun too. Her father had all but handed over Game of Thorns book-keeping to her when she was fourteen. So, she graduated at the head of the class, and her instructor had cheerfully congratulated Belle for earning the highest marks she'd seen in her five years of teaching this class.

"I'm so proud of you Belle!" Moe crowed as he drove her home. "An award in advanced maths, brilliant! Maybe you could come back and manage the books at Game of Thorns again?"

That was _not_ what Belle wanted from life at all. Somehow she didn't feel it would help her move on if she couldn't get a grown-up job, something where she didn't live with her employer. Not to mention her pay check would feel more like a child's allowance if it came from her father...

Still, it was heady accomplishment to have done something _herself_. That night Belle went upstairs to put away her purse and certificate and dug her kit from under the bed. She wouldn't need it anymore. She was on the right track now.

Only then she got downstairs...

Moe was wrapping a bicycle lock around the handles of a kitchen cabinet. He started and smiled meekly at her, patting the cabinet door. "Ah, just in case darling. You've been doing so well I just don't, well, don't worry about it."

He'd locked up the knives. Probably the razors, too. Anything _sharp_ that she could...

Belle walked stiffly out the door.

She took the lid off the can and looked between the sticker-decorated kit and the mostly full receptacle. Most of her wanted to chunk the kit and move on. The rest of her thought back to the locked cabinet. Her father didn't trust her. She didn't have anything to prove that she was going to be fine. Nothing concrete. Just a stupid class certificate saying she could count and a documented history of self-harm...

And, once she picked it up when she noticed it, an ad. The job section of that morning's newspaper.

That was the ticket!

Belle went back upstairs with her kit under her arm, skimming over the ads. There were the standard vacancies for dog walkers and waitresses, and then there were the more career-like positions. An opening for a junior accountant sounded promising. Some kind of positon at the municipal tax offices? That sounded good.

Sitting at her desk, Belle picked up her hand mirror, sitting up straight and trying to make her voice as steady and adult as possible.

"Yes, I would like to apply for the position," she told her reflection, softening her stern expression with a smile. "I know I don't have any references, in fact this would be my first job ever. But I'm an honest, hard worker. And I believe I would do well as an employee of Berkley's municipal tax-Oh bloody _hell_ that sounds so stupid."

Belle shrank back down, covering her eyes. When she pried her hands away, by pure accident, her eyes fell on one ad in particular:

 

 **ASSISTANT WANTED AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA**  
_Math degree mandatory. Secretarial duties expected._  
_Apply at the office of Dr. Rush in the science department._

Hmm.

_Hmm!_

Belle circled the add with a red sharpie and grinned. She could do that. A secretary just answered phones and fetched coffee, right? Take messages? Arrange appointments? And Belle had the math degree. Or her test scores at least...hmm...

"Miss French. _Assistant_."

* * *

Moe dropped Belle at the campus, after extracting a promise for her to call when she was done, and Belle didn't mind at all because she didn't fancy walking home in the torrential downpour. (Of _all_ the days in California to rain, _why today?_ ) It wasn't hard at all finding Dr. Rush's office, especially since his name was painted on the frosted glass.

Belle just made out the name when the same door swung open and a brunette stormed out holding a cardboard box and an envelope in her mouth, streaking mascara running down her face as she cut glares at Belle in the hall before she stomped out of sight.

Well.

Belle peeked inside. Apparently there were two rooms in the office, the large front room where Dr. Rush could ostensibly meet students, with wooden chairs along one wall and a desk Belle could presumably sit at while she worked and take calls. A reception area, she decided. There was a coffee maker in one corner with a little counter and mini-fridge, and Belle found it odd that Rush wouldn't keep that in his office but, then again, she'd never been inside a teacher's office before. She'd never even been sent to the principals office before.

There was another door, with frosted glass that didn't have any markings on it, against the opposite wall that must've been Rush's private office. The door was ajar, just a bit, and Belle gingerly made her way towards it.

Gingerly, because she noticed an over turned plant and several smashed coffee cups, scattered papers and overturned drawers all over the front room. Goodness. What had the old assistant done?

* * *

Nicholas Rush knew he was a bastard. Anyone from his colleagues to the waitress at the nearby diner would attest to that. But even they didn't understand the _depth_ of his ugliness when it came to the revolving door of employees at his office. Assistants came in, assistants were spit back out. The toughest one stuck it out for half a year before folding, and he had a record for one poor girl who folded after two days.

Rush was a bastard, but he knew the problem lay with him. Just what, exactly, the problem was though-

"Hello?" a soft voice called from the front office. "Doctor Rush, sir?"

Rush froze in his office chair.

Then he ran a hand through his shaggy hair, half-hoping it would neaten it, and sat up straighter as the door creaked open, admitting a slip of a woman no older than twenty-five. She could pass for a much younger person with her big blue eyes, damp auburn hair curling around her heart-shaped face, wrapped in an overlarge yellow slicker and rainboots that reminded Rush of that frozen seafood package mascot. Such a tiny, soft-looking thing.

She didn't belong here.

"Yes?" Rush clasped his hands in front of him, trying to keep his expression blank.

"I, um, I'm here about the job? The assistant's position?" she clarified, shifting from one boot to the other. What was she, Australian? "I-I could come back, if this is a bad time-"

"The position?"

"Y-yes?"

It was poised on the tip of Rush's tongue to say _"Speak clearly."_ Instead he waved a hand in a 'stay' sort of motion. "No, no. Please. Stay."

Belle bit her lip, then straightened up and walked to the front of the desk. She reached inside her rain slicker and withdrew a crumpled sheet of paper spattered with a bit of wet and held it out to Rush. He stared at her blankly.

"I-it said assistant? The ad in the personals?" Belle swallowed.

"Ah, right," Rush's brown eyes sparked with recognition and his tense shoulders relaxed a bit. "Are you pregnant?"

Belle could feel her jaw dropping. It was one of those questions you're so shocked at that you just blurt out the answer: "No."

"Do you intend to be pregnant?" Rush settled back in his chair, resting his elbow on the chair arm and the side of his face in his hand. He was undeniably Scottish, the way he rolled his R's, and that with the ridiculous question made Belle giggle.

"No!"

Rush was unfazed by her giggle. "Are you married?"

"No."

"D'you live in a house or an apartment?"

"A house."

"Alone?"

"With my father. It's his house, I guess."

"Hmm. Ever won an award?"

"Yes," Belle nodded. "Sort of."

"What does that mean?" Rush asked, pulling a remote out of a drawer and clicking a button. Track lightning overhead switched on, illuminating a side of the room fairly covered by three large white boards covered in equations. Belle had recognized a few symbols from the physics branch of her math classes, but she had a question to answer and couldn't study them yet.

"Math," she replied, tearing her gaze from the board. "Advanced maths at the community college. My instructor said I had the highest scores in her-"

"Those your scores there?"

Belle looked down. His eyes were locked on the certificate she'd forgotten was in her hands. Crumpled even more. "Oh, oh yes," Belle nodded, trying to smooth the sheet out on his desk before him.

Rush's gaze flicked to the paper. "Belle French," he sounded out carefully, picking up the old telephone nearby and dialing a number. He glanced at her as he held the reciever to his ear, over the frames of his glasses. "Coffee. Milk. Two sugars."

And then he ignored her, leaving Belle to watch him for a moment before she realized he'd put in a request for coffee. Ah. Well this she could do!

Belle trotted out, closing the door behind her. She missed Rush taking the red sharpies on his desk and sweeping them into the trash bin.

The little kitchenette did not have a sink. But there was one of those water coolers with the big plastic jugs. Belle removed her coat and tried to dispense some water into a paper cup...only, _naturally_ , the jug was empty. It was safe to say that, despite trying her very best, Belle and the replacement jug she found under the cabinet had a fierce battle Belle barely won. There was water splashed all down her front, enough that she wished she was still wearing a coat.

The coffee was easy-peasy.

Rush had moved to a small sitting area by the windows, with a coffee table between two padded chairs, sitting on one with his arm over the back and his legs crossed. Belle set down the coffee in front of him and sat when he gestured to the other chair.

"Belle," Rush began, "All you need to do is type up letters and answer the phone. Maybe grade a few simpler papers if I'm busy."

Belle nodded, seated in the other chair. It was diffcult to pass as a respectable job candidate while dabbing your blouse dry with paper napkins, but she tried her best.

"The thing is..." Rush dragged his up from the way his potential assistant was fondling her pert breasts. Was she doing that on purpose? Not likely, little Belle radiated innocence from her headband down to her mary-janes. "You've the best scores I've ever seen in an applicant. You're overqualified. I think you'll be bored here."

"That's okay." Belle chirped, her hand falling into her lap.

He tilted his head, quirking a brow. "You'll be _very_ bored."

"I _want_ to be bored," she assured, raising her head up high and resisting the nervous urge to bite her lip.

Rush settled back, looking at her as if she were a complex work of art. "Belle, you're so..." he inhaled, holding up his hands before clenching them into fists with a sigh. "So closed up. There's a...there's _a wall_ , there. Do you loosen up?"

Belle found she was biting her lip despite her best intentions. Did she loosen up? "I...don't know."

The phone on the desk rang and Rush got up, picking it up and dragging it to the coffee table before Belle. "I'm not here."

Belle blinked, watching the man scoop up his coffee and move over to his whiteboards. "Less sugar, next time," Rush added, meeting bright blue eyes with deep brown ones with a glance over his shoulder.

Oh. _Oh!_ Belle felt a grin split her face and she squirmed on her chair. Was it unprofessional for Doctor Nicholas Rush's new assistant? Maybe so.

_But she was Doctor Rush's new assistant!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note to Secretary fans: There will be no typewriters in this fic. You'll find the alternative in the next chapter.
> 
> Otherwise: Thanks for reading this!!!


	3. III. The Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After securing the job with Doctor Nicholas Rush, Belle sets out to work as his assistant...

Work was boring in the office of Dr. Rush. Steadily, consistently, perfectly boring. Belle had spent all night when she'd gotten home grinning and looking at the cardigan and knee-length lint-gray dress and nude hosiery she'd chosen as her professional attire. On her second day Belle had gotten out copies of Rush's older equations he'd written down and spread them out to organize them. The plan had been to color-code them in files, but then she wound up skimming over them.

Her math classes were different, but it wasn't too different. Belle could understand the complicated equations if she turned them over long enough.

Rush noticed this before leaving for lunch and then gave her the job of re-copying the formulas from his notebooks onto paper to file. He gazed approvingly at her work and gave her a little smile.

"Very good, Belle," he nodded, retreating to his office.

Those three words of praise made Belle buzz all over and preen. There was satisfaction to be had in being good at her job. And if the praise came from her boss, so much the better was that satisfaction.

A good week or so passed by. Belle took notes, answered the phone, (Rush once said he'd have hired a blind saxophone player as long as he didn't have to answer every damned phone call, and it was all Belle could do not to giggle at that,) and sorted Rush's paperwork. And there was _plenty_ of paperwork.

Before Belle went to lunch she stopped by the restroom down the hall from Rush's office. Someone had left an eye shadow compact on the counters and Belle spent a little time applying a bit of sparkly blue to her eyelids. It looked pretty. She wondered if Rush would notice.

Then she laughed at herself, because that was silly, and went off to Granny's Diner. Belle even had Ruby as her waitress and Belle took great pleasure in holding her head high and saying she was on her lunch break.

"Well look at you, working girl!" Ruby grinned wolfishly, giving her a good-natured punch in the arm that didn't hurt. "That's great!"

It was.

Belle brought back a small bag of doughnuts when she returned from her for Dr. Rush. She wasn't sure if he ever ate, and honestly, while doughnuts may not be healthy, one should not be able to subsist on a diet of coffee alone. A bit of solid food might be appreciated. Belle knocked on the door and slipped inside shyly, setting the doughnuts on the edge of Rush's desk. The man in question was standing by his white board, scribbling with a dry-erase marker in one hand and an eraser clenched in the other.

Dr. Rush wasn't a very tall man, maybe five inches taller than Belle. She didn't feel like a midget around him and that was a novelty. Rush was wearing a white button-down tucked into jeans, with a leather belt around his narrow hips. He was a very lean man, but there was something strong about him. Not in an intimidating way, exactly. Belle couldn't define it, but she felt...secure. And the fact that Rush looked rather good in his button-down and jeans, and soft brown hair, hardly hurt matters.

"Belle," Rush turned before she could leave. "I lost the notebook I was writing in the other day, the blue one? It was on my desk, but it must've fallen off. Do you think you could-"

"Dig through the trash?"

Rush paused, blinking twice. "Ah, yes, yes. Please."

Belle smiled, slipping back out the door and exiting the office. The dumpster against the back of the building could be seen from Rush's windows, facing the back of the campus where bad students went to smoke, tobacco or other products, and some of the faculty parked. Not a very nice place to be, but still, Belle had emptied the bins that morning so the notebook should be near the top. Not too hard.

At least...if she were "normal-sized" it wouldn't be. As it stood, between her five-foot-two inches of lacking size and long charcoal gray skirt, Belle practically had to climb a mountain. But she shimied into the dumpster and began rooting around for the little blue notebook.

* * *

Rush heard the door shut and immediately put down his marker and eraser. Then he crossed to his desk and picked up the bag of doughnuts.

They went into the trash bin as he crossed to the window that overlooked the unglamorous view of the university's rear parking lot.

Little Belle French was struggling to climb over the dumpster. She managed the trick at last, tumbling into the dumpster and digging into the trash immediately. With eagerness that belied the soaring heat and the hot sun, god it must have smelled like, well, a dumpster out there...

Fuck.

What the _fuck_ was he doing?

Rush had very specifically thrown out all his red pens when he hired Belle. Even the dry-erase ones. He'd been using blue pens while grading, making a concentrated effort to not fuck it up as he'd done with the past nine assistants to come through his door. But...

Then there was Belle. A beautiful, willing little woman, digging through the univeristy dumpster and picking up the notebook he didn't really need. He could see her plucking a candy wrapper off the cover with her soft little hand, fingertips brushing the cover-

Rush tore himself from the window with a groan, burning his tongue on the hot coffee steaming on his desk as he sank into his chair. He picked up the student essay he was supposed to be going over and tried to tell himself the hot feeling in his belly was just the coffee. It was just the coffee. What else could it be?

* * *

Belle could barely keep the grin off her face as she trotted back to the office. The notebook was safe and sound, insulated by scrap paper, protected from most of the nasty trash save one candy bar wrapper that left of a stain of chocolate on the cover. She entered the office with it clutched to her chest, standing by Dr. Rush's desk as he read from the sheaf of papers in his hands. When he didn't say anything, Belle shifted impatiently and cleared her throat.

"E-excuse me?"

"Mm?" he glanced up, from her to the notebook, and hummed noncommitally. "Oh. Yes, I don't need that. I have a copy of the notes already."

Belle bit her lip. "Oh..."

"This needs more sugar," Rush continued as she set the notebook down on a corner of the desk, (away from the bin, just in case,) and then pushed a stack of paper at her. "And make six copies of this, too."

Belle took the coffee cup and backed out of the office. She'd almost made it when Rush added: "Would you mind setting out those roach motels the university handed out Belle? I saw one of the little buggers skitter across my whiteboard this morning. Rather not go through that again."

Belle still felt... _stung_ , from the notebook fiasco. But she didn't have any fondness for roaches herself, so she went to the reception area and picked up a few of the traps to set in Rush's office. She crawled around, setting one by the whiteboard and another by his desk. That was when she saw that the doughnuts were lying in the trashcan. And they hadn't accidentally fallen in there, either...

"Oh..." she looked down to the trap in her hands. Apparently her good intentions were unwanted. Of course they were.

"Be sure to put one under the coffee table," Rush added. The paper was still in his hand, his face still angled towards it. His eyes were naturally on the little woman crawling around on the carpet setting out roach motels. She gave him a look that wasn't quite defiance, nor exasperation, just sort of curious. But Belle still crawled over to the table and shuffled half under the table to set the trap in the back.

Belle nudged the trap up against the floorboard beneath the table. She had to grab the leg of the table to keep from falling on her chin, and she didn't want to think about-

The hairs on the back of Belle's neck stood up.

She turned over her shoulder, just barely making Rush out of the corner of her eye. He was staring at her with an inscrutable expression. And Belle knew he wasn't staring at her bottom, (which in hindsight was more than a little on display bent like this,) and she felt the air conditioning kick on. A chill tickled her thigh, where her skirt had rode up. Over her flesh-colored knee-high stockings. And last night she had used the razorblade in her kit to make four little cuts on the back of her thigh, covered with strips of a cut-up band-aid.

Oh _shit._

The air grew tense and Belle felt her chest tightening. Rush blinked, but he did not turn away. Why wouldn't he turn away? Would he fire her for being a self-mutilating freak?

The phone rang and Belle scurried out from under the table. It was her job to answer the phone, after all. And all the traps were down in his office. Yes. She was done there. No harm done. No harm done, right?

Belle scooped the phone off the cradle and held it up to her ear. "Hello?" she asked, and the telemarketer lauched into a speech. The door swung open then, and a woman strode in. She was tall with dark hair and fixed Belle with a cool look.

"Is he in?"

Belle held up a finger as the telemarketer continued. (Was it a telemarketer if it was affiliated with a Christian faith magazine?) "Well, you're right, there must be something in the afterlife, yes-"

"I'm going back outside," the woman said, turning around.

"Could you just wait one moment please?" Belle asked, then replied to the telemarketer, "Yes, well, wait, alright, sir? Sir?"

The woman stared at Belle for a long moment, eyeing her up and down before a cold smile touched her lips. "Submissive?"

"Excuse me?"

" _NICHOLAS_!" the woman screeched, facing Rush's door with a fierce scowl.

Behind the door, Rush dropped his grading pen as Mandy's voice rang through the frosted glass. _Shit._

Belle was a little scared, but mainly irritated by this intruder's shouting at her boss. What was her problem? She turned her (meager) ire onto the phone and snapped, "Well I have no idea if Catholics are praying correctly or not! Good day!"

It felt very good to slam the phone onto the cradle and she took a deep breath, sweeping the loose wisps escaping her bun back behind her ears as she faced the dark-haired woman as professionally as she could.

For her part, the woman looked severely unimpressed. "Tell him it's Amanda Perry."

Belle nodded briskly and hurried to the office, darting inside and shutting the door behind her. But it was as if a black hole had opened up underneath Rush's chair and swallowed him: He was nowhere in sight.

"Dr. Rush?" Belle called quietly, hoping Ms. Perry wouldn't hear her. "Dr. Rush? Hello?"

There was a soft scuffle and the door of the coat closet shuddered. Belle padded over and whispered. "Dr. Rush?"

The door cracked open, enough to make out one dark brown eye.

" _I'm not here_ ," he whispered, shutting the door back immediately after.

Belle pressed her lips together. Hmm. Still, she nodded (and replied with a soft "OK" when she realized he couldn't see her,) and returned to the office where Ms. Perry was sitting on one of the wooden chairs.

"I'm afraid he's gone," Belle reported. Lied.

The woman arched a brow. "Is that so?"

The telephone rang, then, and Belle picked it up. "Dr. Rush's office-"

"Belle?"

Belle froze. "Papa?"

"S'all going wrong Belle, all wrong..." her father moaned, his speech slurred. He was drunk. Before...oh god, way before noon, that was never good.

"Papa, whe-Wait a minute," Belle covered the reciever, looking back at Ms. Perry. "Do you have a message for Dr. Rush?"

Amanda Perry pursed her lips. She walked over to the coat rack and plucked off Rush's blazer, dropping it on the floor before angrily grinding it into the carpet with her heels. "Tell him to sign the settlement," she snapped, storming out the door and slamming it shut so hard the glass rattled.

Belle blinked, her head spinning. What was-Papa!

"Papa? Papa, where are you? Hello? P-Papa?"

No answer. No answer from her father. Who was god knows where and very drunk. Oh god...

Belle slammed the phone back down. She slammed it down again, twice more, for good measure. (Cellphones were convenient, but not as satisfying to hang up with, she thought absently.) It didn't settle the raw, jangling nerves in her belly and the too-fast turning of her mind and before she knew it she was yanking the glittery blue travel case out the desk drawer.

The iodine. The bandages. The cuticle scissors or a razerblade? Scissors, Belle wanted precision, she decided, hiking up her skirt over her knee-highs. She pressed the tip of the scissors against a smooth, unmarked patch of skin-

A prickle ran up Belle's spine and she slowly, slowly looked over to find Dr. Rush's dark eyes peering at her through partially opened door.

He just _stared_ at her...

And Belle swallowed, pushing down her skirt and mechanically packing everything away, staring straight ahead until she had dropped her kit back into the drawer. When she looked up again...Rush was gone.

* * *

The next three days passed. Rush didn't say anything, do anything. Every time Belle was called into his office she expected to be fired or told off, but instead, she was told to send an e-mail, find some files, call a colleague, and once, to ask if she'd seen his car keys in the front office.

Belle almost convinced herself that she'd been mistaken. That he either hadn't seen anything, or didn't understand what he did see. Maybe he thought she was...um...cutting a string on the top of her stockings? Maybe?

Moe returned home in the wee hours of the morning, hungover and brushing off her pleading for him to talk to her. Everything was fine, he said, don't worry about me, he said, the business is doing fine.

Will called. He'd been doing that off and on lately. He asked her if she wanted to go get a bite to eat sometime and when Moe overheard, he looked so pleased, and Will sounded so hopeful, that Belle found herself agreeing. She liked Will. Just...she just liked him. Moe gave her a kiss on the top of her head before she left and told her he was happy she was going out, then settled back on the couch to watch The Wheel of Fortune.

They ended up going to a little circle of food trucks not too far from the university. There were plastic tables set up in the semi-circle of mobile kitchens and lanterns strung up prettily. It was nice, Belle decided. Will was nice. They sat down, her with a hamburger and iced tea, and Will with some kind of burrito. Chimichanga? Enchilada? Tex-Mex-Rex, the side of the truck had declared.

"See," Will said, illustrating his point with his fork waving around. "Now most people pop open boxes and try to slip off with the merchandise. Others stick little things in their pockets. And some people try to slip it under the baby's pram. Me? I wouldn't put anything under the pram because the little one might rat me out to their mum. Don't you think?"

Belle almost choked on her tea then. Her? Babies? "Ah...I'd probably stick things in my pocket."

Will nodded. "That's one way to do it, yeah. But if you're really keen, you'd stick things down your trousers."

Belle snorted unexpectedly. "What?"

"Yeah! Look, say, you take a book, right? Well you open it up about halfway through, and stick it down your waistband-"

"No!"

"Yeah! And then you pull your shirt back over it and off you trot!"

Belle giggled in earnest now, earning a goofy grin from Will who balled up the waxed paper liner from his long-gone meal and tossed it at a nearby trashcan. It bounced off the rim and fell onto the ground.

"Bollocks."

Belle bit her lip, stifling another round of giggles as she crumpled up her hamburger wrapper and gave it a try. Swish! It sank in beautifully, a perfect shot.

Will laughed and tossed the cardboard french fry tray at the can, and soon (more or less) he and Belle had cleared their table's trash in this fashion with much laughter. Will leaned forwards and hooked an arm around Belle's shoulders, planting a kiss on her mouth. It was a quick peck, nice, kinda ticklish honestly, and Belle giggled again.

She did not see Dr. Rush standing on the sidewalk a ways away...

* * *

Rush knew, logically, for he was a man of science, that there was no reason for this sting of jealousy behind his breastbone. No reason for his hands to itch with the impulse to curl into fists and collide with the skinhead's square face. No reason for him to want to violently attack anyone, because, Belle was not his. Well she was his. His employee. Nothing more. Obviously she was on a date. She was allowed to date, he signed her checks, he didn't own her.

But if some rude young man with a beard like a birds nest hadn't bumped into him then, jarring him back to reality, Rush couldn't say he wouldn't stop himself. He wanted to tear whatshisname's paws off Belle and-

And-

Rush stalked back down the street. He'd never been so wrong to seek out a cup of coffee he didn't brew himself at the circle of food trucks down the block from his house. It was good coffee but it wasn't worth...this. Whatever this he felt was.

He climbed back into his Toyota around the corner and shut the door harder than he needed to. For a long moment, he just stared at the logo on the steering wheel. Ignoring the mockingly bright street lights and cheerful people milling around on a Friday night. Some were probably his students.

Rush clenched his hands around the wheel for another moment, then reached blindly for the glove box. There was one, single red marker there. One he wasn't sure if he'd kept, or missed, during his purge of scarlet pens when he hired Belle French. Well...good.

He was going to make good use of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used Mandy because I thought if fit, but then again, I've never really watched SGU, just read about it. The magazine guy is based in part on a real-life experience where the mostly-nice lady corned my mom in the driveway once and said that 'Catholics don't pray right', which...I don't see how, because isn't the whole point in getting the message up to your God?
> 
> Enough philosophy! Next time: Spanking. (And we're all going to hell! Yay!)


	4. IV. The Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle's boss is not pleased by seeing her on a date with Will Scarlet, nor is he pleased by her hurting herself...

Monday morning came and Belle sat at her desk, busily typing up an e-mail to a Dr. Jackson for her boss. Her date with Will had gone, well, nicely. Just nicely. Not great, not amazing, just...nice. If there hadn't been kisses, Belle might've just called it an outing with a friend.

She was very much absorbed in her typing when Rush swept in front of her desk and a sheet of paper was thrust into her face.

"What is this, Belle?" he snapped, and Belle had to lean back in her chair a bit to see it, her mouth gaping just a hair.

It was one of her copied notes. Rush's handwriting got a bit blurry in his notes, and Belle had to hazard a guess on context what the right figures were. There were places on the sheet of paper where the equation was marked with red rings-

"There are three miscalculations in this paper," Rush spoke tersely. "One of which I believe is the wrong symbol entirely."

"O-oh..." Belle swallowed. They _were_ mistakes, she noted. Her stomach sank.

"This is not the first time either. I've let it go on for the first few weeks, thinking you would learn and adjust to your new job. This cannot go on, Belle, do you know how this looks when I submit a formula like this? Sloppy. It makes me, _my work_ , look sloppy."

Belle nodded, agreeing and understanding.

"Do it over," he ordered, storming back into his office.

Belle swallowed, taking the sheet of paper and setting it in front of her as she dug out a clean sheet. She reworked the equations soon enough and brought it back to his desk. With the paper in front of him, Rush scanned it before uncapping the marker with a cold snap and applied a bright red circle to the document.

Curling his lip, Rush crumpled the paper into a ball and offered it back to her. "You are wasting my time."

Belle found herself sitting at her desk, trying to calm down. She was just going to make more mistakes if she was nervous. She needed to make this right for Dr. Rush, proof of her loyalty and determination. Biting her lip, Belle fished out her kit and retrieved the scissors, hitching up her skirt. Only instead of stabbing her flesh, Belle cut out a little triangle of fabric from the back of her baggy brown skirt where it wouldn't show. Well, from the front.

Sitting the scrap down just above the fresh sheet of paper, a piece of herself, she thought, her sacrifice, Belle carefully began writing out the equation. She double-checked her work mentally before her pen ever touched the paper, one figure at a time. It took a good hour, but it was perfect. A student had come in and gone out in the time Belle worked, and she made her way back to Rush's office with the equation for the second time that day.

Rush was looking at a textbook of some description, settled back in his chair. He didn't acknowledge her entrance, even as she laid the paper down in front of him and stepped back, clasping her hands together as she waited. She'd done it right this time. She knew she had.

And he ignored her. _Ouch._

Belle counted to fifty in her head before wordlessly turning, walking to the door and opening it. Rush peered up, at last. His little assistant was leaving the office...and there was a little piece of fabric cut out her skirt. A jagged little triangle, and the book snapped shut hard enough to make her flinch.

"Belle."

"Yes, Dr. Rush?" she peered over her shoulder with confused blue eyes.

"Quite frankly..." he eyed her over his glasses, frowning at her shapeless cardigan and sack of a skirt. "Your attire is disgusting. You are the first thing my colleagues and students see when they come to my office. And that image you're presenting is unacceptable."

Belle swallowed down the hurt, nodding.

"And your hair," he gestured just a bit towards her with his book. "You're always playing with it, that's unprofessional. Either start wearing a hairnet, or stop playing with it."

"Y-yes Dr. Rush," Belle nodded again, her breath catching. "Is there...anything else?"

"Hmm. No."

Belle slipped out the office, feeling lightheaded as she sat down again. Her paycheck was supposed to come in today, wasn't it? Maybe...maybe she could find something nice to wear? It didn't have to be a designer label anything (she couldn't afford it to start with,) but...maybe Ruby could help her put something together?

* * *

Shopping with Ruby Lucas (who wrangled another friend, Ariel, into coming along for her employee discount,) was sort of like surfing a tsunami. A force of nature. In red.

Ruby and Ariel, a bubbly redhead who was impossible not to befriend, dragged her through three or four different stores until they deemed Belle professionally attired. Ariel even helped her figure out some pretty ways to tie her hair back in different braids and buns and twists. So, dressed in a cream-colored blouse and a navy blue pencil skirt, wearing nude-colored pantyhouse and black patent leather heels that ate the biggest hole in her budget but were too lovely to pass on, giving her an impressive boost in height to boot, Belle showed up at work just a few minutes before Dr. Rush, already seated and catching up on some e-mails.

The professor gave her a passing, cursory glance. But he said nothing negative, or positive, and Belle refused to acknowledge that little sting of rejection when she hadn't a reason to be rejected in the first place.

Just before lunch, though, Belle was called into the back. Dr. Rush was sitting by the coffee table, scribbling away in his omnipresent notebook. He flipped the cover shut and gave her a crooked smile that made her belly twist, and said warmly, "Ah, Belle. Just in time. The phone is ringing."

He motioned to the phone with his pencil and Belle gave him a blank look. The landline phone had moved, sitting on the coffee table now. But it wasn't ringing-

" _Brrrrring_!" Rush waved his hand quickly, his accent rolling the R's dramatically. " _Brrrrrrrinng_!"

The flamboyant gesturing and wide eyes had Belle giggling even as she reached for the phone, but managed to keep her voice level as she "answered" the device. "Hello, you have reached Dr. Nicholas Rush's office..."

Rush shook his head, getting to his feet to stand closer to her, slicing a hand through the air. "No, no, come now. I'm sure you can get a bigger voice out of that tiny throat of yours, Belle. Try again."

Belle took a deep breath. "Hello! You have reached the office of Dr. Nicholas Rush!"

With a loud applause of his hands, Rush sat back down with a grin that made Belle buzz from head to toe. "That's it! I knew you could do it!"

When he motioned for her to sit in the other chair, which had been moved around by his, Belle oblidged, sitting and folding her hands on her lap. "So," Rush began, with that gentle smile still lingering. "Did you have a date a few nights ago Belle?"

Belle bit her lip, trying to keep from smiling nervously. "Yes," she looked down at her freshly painted nails.

"Did you have sex?"

A snort escaped Belle, and she tried to cover with a hand. It couldn't be helped. She and Will had sort of made out, and she felt his, uh, him, against her hip during it once or twice, but there had been no...contact. But according to Ruby, you didn't always have to be naked in a bed for that sort of thing. Oh dear _god_.

It was embarassment that had Belle giggling now, she was sure of it, thought at the memory, question, or idea she couldn't tell. "I don't, uh, I don't think so."

Rush's brown eyes were still soft, and he gave her an odd, searching glance before he asked, "Are you shy, Belle? I'm shy."

Belle shook her head. "You're not shy! You're brilliant!" She'd heard him tell off some of the students that stormed into his office to complain, and that was definitely not shy at all.

"I am shy. I just sort of overcome my shyness to..." he shrugged, lacing his fingers together. "Get things done."

Belle didn't think she'd ever been this close to Dr. Rush before. He smelled like coffee, which wasn't a surprise, a bit like cigarttes, also not surprising, but there was something pleasantly spicy that brought a smile to her face. "I don't think you're shy..."

"Hmm. Now, ah, Belle," he said, locking brown eyes with her blue ones. "I know as your employer, as my assistant, you and I have a...a prescribed relationship. But I want you to feel that you can talk to me about your problems. You know that, right?"

There was a sincerity, a quiet honesty, that reminded Belle of Dr. Hopper. Someone who listened instead of waited on you to assure them you were okay. She smiled. "Yes."

The smile turned ever-so-slightly sad. "So, what's with the sewing kit? And the band-aids?"

Well if he saw them, he knew. It wasn't exactly a secret that there were some crazy people like her that cut up their bodies, Rush had been around. Surely he knew.

"You want a coffee Belle?"

Belle nodded and Rush turned, plucking a paper coffee cup off the window sill. She'd assumed it was his earlier. The cup was pleasantly warm in her hands, and it had just the right amount of cream and sugar that Belle liked best. Hazelnut cream, too. Rush watched her drink the coffee for a bit, then asked gently, "Why do you cut yourself, Belle?"

Focusing on the hot cup, Belle looked down at the sloshing liquid inside. "I don't know..."

Her eyes met his again, and Rush pursed his lips thoughtfully.

"Is it because you feel pain inside, and that's the only way for it to come to the surface? And when you see that pain, is it finally evidence that you really are here? And then watching the wound heal, it's comforting, isn't it?"

"I..." words failed Belle, her head spinning. Yes. That was everything she could never define over six months of therapy. "Th-that's about it, yes."

"Well, Belle. I'm going to tell you something. Are you ready to listen?" Belle nodded and Rush leaned closer. "You will never, ever do that to yourself again. You are over that. It's in the past. You will never do that to yourself again."

Belle remembered how to breathe when he finished, her chest feeling like a hot lump had just dissolved, effusing her with warmth. "Okay."

Rush smiled gentle, more warmth filling her from his deep, dark eyes. "Now, you know what I want you to do? You're going to finish work early, you'll call your father, and tell him you do not need to be picked up after work. You're a big girl, you can go home by yourself. You're going to go for a walk in the fresh air. You know why? Because you need the relief, the peace. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Belle nodded. If Dr. Rush had been a hypnotist, she couldn't have been more entranced by his words. Because she knew them to be true, she would never hurt herself again.

When she returned to her desk, Belle called and said that she didn't beed a ride that afternoon, or ever again. And then she hung up. When she got off, she walked all the way home, cutting through a park, and feeling like she was free. Only...like Rush was there, too, at the same time. What a funny feeling, like a piece of Rush's shadow had bonded to hers, staying close...

* * *

On her way to work the next morning, Belle flung her kits into the pond. Nobody saw, but it did frighten the three ducks away. Belle went to the office without iodine or band-aids for the first time...but she did make a mistake.

"You have one job, Ms. French!" The paper, with no less than three red circles, slapped in front of Belle from over her shoulder, Rush leaning close behind her. "Can't you do it right?"

"I-I'm sorry-"

"Don't apologize to me!" Rush barked back, stepping away and pacing for a moment before giving her a dark glare. "I have students that learn faster than you do, what goes on inside that little head of yours?"

Belle swallowed, dropping her eyes. She didn't have any excuses, and the fire blazing in his brown eyes made her feel like it wanted to consume her like so much kindling.

Rush sucked his teeth, irritated, and glared down at his shoes. Then he seemed to freeze in place, only his eyes moving to the paper on her desk. When he spoke, his voice was tight, pointing at the equation.

"Bring that to my office," he ordered, stalking away.

Belle waited until her legs felt sturdy enough to walk on before she obeyed, walking slowly into the office. It wasn't that she was scared, because she trusted Dr. Rush. She just didn't know what to expect as Rush stood by his desk with his arms crossed over his dark blue button-down, acknowledging the desk. "Put it down."

Belle did.

"Now bend over, and put your elbows on the desk, and recite it back to me."

Belle hesitated. "Why...?"

"Don't talk, just do it."

With a flip-flopping stomach, Belle leaned over on her elbows, aligning her face to look down on the letter. She was short enough, even in her new heels, that she didn't have far to bend, and she heard Rush shift behind her as she began to read the equation aloud-

**Whack!**

Belle nearly collapsed over the desk from the slap stinging her ass. Her mouth fell open as she turned around, gaping with wide eyes at Dr. Rush, who stared blankly back at her and ordered, "Keep reading."

It occurred to Belle now that she could say no. She probably should say no. She should probably say no, stand up, and walk away. That's what a normal, smart girl would do. But Belle may have been smart...but she wasn't normal. So she turned around, licking her dry lips, and began to read the equation again-

**Whack! Whack!**

Two sharp blows within five seconds of each other. Belle tried to read out the math formula while Rush spanked at irregular intervals again- **whack!** -and again,- **whack!** -until Belle reached the end of the document and gasped out, "Nicholas Rush!" where he had signed his name.

"Read it again."

Belle complied, unable to keep from making small gasps and groans because the sharp blows, coming quicker- **whack!** -and quicker,- **whack!** -didn't really hurt. Exactly, but she was breathless and dizzy and the last slap almost had her crumple like wet tissue paper.

_**WHACK!!** _

" _Nicholas Rush!_ " she gasped out, and in another moment, Rush slumped forward a little, his hand falling on the desk to prop him up from collapsing against him completely. His breathing was heavy, tickling her ear with the wisps of hair that escaped her bun. His thumb overlapped her fingers, just barely, and Belle curled her pinky around it, nearly whimpering at the contact of his skin against hers. He was so warm-

Rush pulled back then, leaving her breathless on jelly-like legs, her bottom sore.

"Write it again," he ordered, completely in control, and walking over to sit by the windows.

Belle stood there a minute, trying to catch her breath. When she could walk, she managed to go down to the bathroom and (thank _god_ it was empty,) pulled up her skirt and tugged down her underwear. Her bottom was bright red, where she'd been spanked like an ill-behaved child, on both cheeks. And...she wasn't particularly offended. She probably should be. This was definitely NOT normal workplace behavior, and what was that about 'prescribed relationships' yesterday?

But...it felt good. Good enough that by the time she'd re-written the equation and delivered it to Rush, who was sitting there where she left him, going through an old notebook and making updates. Carefully, Belle set it down on the coffee table and smiled, waiting.

Rush ignored her.

Pointedly. He even stopped, turned a page, and kept going.

Belle suddenly realized...this was part of his game. He'd punish her, and carry on as if nothing happened. Well...okay...

Maybe half an hour later, when Belle was copying some files, Dr. Rush stopped outside the door with a knock on the frame to catch her attention. He gave her one of those little crooked smiles that had her feeling fizzy, and said, "Great work, Belle." He left her there with her buzzing head and a bright smile.

So that's how this game was played: He'd punish her, ignore it happened, and praise her for it later. Okay...

When Belle got home, she smiled at Moe, who had shut the fridge quickly with a rattling of glass when she came in. "Papa!" Belle crowed. "The locks can come off the cabinet, we don't need them anymore."

Moe's brow knit, but a bright smile was spreading across his face. "Really?"

"Really!"

Her father scooped her up in a big hug and helped her make dinner, washing dishes while she dryed them. He didn't even have a beer. Belle felt perfect for the first time in...well...ever.

If this was what that dark-shadow feeling was, this odd little game she was playing with Doctor Nicholas Rush now...Belle thought she was going to enjoy it. Very much, she held in a giggle, leaning her sore bottom against the counter and savoring the ache of the bruises...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is writing itself. I'm both proud...and envious because all my other WIPs are sitting there like: _But what about me? When is it my turn to shine!_
> 
> Also: I don't know math-words, especially sciencey math-words. So...more smacky, less speaky, was my objective above.


	5. V. The Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unusual punishment starts a new code of behavior for Belle and Dr. Rush...

The games with Dr. Rush began, and Belle never felt threatened by them. The only time he laid a hand on her was when he spanked her, and while technically he struck her bottom, he never groped or fondled her. When he snapped at her it was over a typo or miscalculation underlined and circled with blood-red ink.

And she admired the creativity of her punishments. Sometimes they were spankings. Sometimes he made her told her to crawl on all fours, delivering letters and files with in her mouth. There were cuffs and collars, sometimes linked together. Once she had to figure out how to type out an e-mail with her hands cuffed behind her back. (She poked the keys with her tongue, one at a time.) Belle was game for all of Rush's challenges, an eager smile jumping to her face whenever Rush barked, "Miss French!" from his office.

Some of her mistakes had been framed, on the walls. The students and staff that came in and out the office must've thought it was some kind of nerdy art, and there was something artistic about the stark white paper and the black ink of the equations, and the red marker highlighting her typos.

Somehow, despite the snarls and show of bad temper, the rolls of his dark eyes and the exasperation whenever he waved a flawed formula translated from his notebooks....Belle thought Rush enjoyed it as much as she did. She carried out his other little orders, too. Sorting his notebooks by order of fullness, scrubbing the whiteboard, changing the lightbulb wattage. It was worth it when Rush checked her work and treated her to a crooked smile and a few words of praise.

He told her what she could eat. That night Belle called him and told him about the Hawaiian pizza, breadsticks, and chocolate ice cream for desert, and she waited for her orders.

"Hmm. Alright, you can have one slice of pizza, but pick the toppings off. Two breadsticks. And as much ice cream as you please."

Moe gave his daughter a funny look when she plucked all the ham and pineapple off her pizza, but didn't say anything.

The only time Belle did not call Dr. Rush about her dinner was when she went on a date with Will Scarlet. Belle wasn't sure why she kept dating Will. He was nice. Very nice. He wasn't as mischevious as he was in high school and he'd cut back on his drinking, (which Belle appreciated, she was still worrying over her father...) but he was just...just a better friend than boyfriend, she thought. Still, she couldn't find it in her to say 'no', and her father was so glad she was dating and...

She just wished she could just go out with Dr. Rush instead.

She hadn't missed how he looked at her when he was through spanking her. She was sure she looked a mess with mussed hair and rumpled clothes, but Rush's dark eyes grew darker and deeper and Belle wanted to drown in them. Somehow she thought Rush wanted to devour her as much as she wanted to be devoured by him.

A quick perusal of a Cosmopoliton magazine gave Belle an idea or two on how to gain Rush's attention. The advice seemed rather shallow,- _try to get him to open up with some breezy humor, and never jump into relationship talk_ ,-but Ruby and Ariel swore on Cosmo like a bible. Who knew?

Lying back on her bed in floppy teacup-print flannel, tossing the magazine aside, Belle didn't feel very glamorous. Well, probably because she wasn't glamorous. But she was imaginative. Enough that the idea of wearing an outfit Rush seemed to favor seeing dishevieled, a lacy white blouse with a sweetheart neckline and cap sleeves, with one of her shorter black skirts that threatened to ride up her ass when she was bent over his desk, made her squirmy on top of the covers.

What if her skirt were to ride up? What did it feel like to have him strike her with nothing between her skin and his hand?

Belle pressed her thighs together vainly, biting her lip before she dared to wiggle her fingers under the waistband of her pajama pants. The first accidental brush of her fingers over her plain white underwear made her twitch and a more purposeful brush made her swallow back a groan. Belle wasn't a virigin, exactly, and she'd read a few informative novels. But she'd never had concrete fantasies, just a few vague images and thoughts that helped her along.

Now, she couldn't help but imagine being made to stand in the center of Rush's office in her lacy blouse and short skirt and the black tights that made her legs look longer, with Dr. Rush in front of her. He pulled her close for a moment and that made the first keen rise from Belle's throat and her fingers crept under her wet panties. Rush rarely touched her beyond a brush of fingers when something passed between their hands or to keep from falling over her when he was done spanking her. A full embrace, his breath tickling her neck, would be perfect by itself...

But then he'd have her on her hands and knees while he sat there by the coffee table, one ankle crossed over his knee and his arms folded, watching her touch herself. Watching her touch herself for him-

Belle had never had a job before, but she was certain this was inappropriate. Touching yourself to thoughts of your boss.

Besides, Will was her boyfriend. Right? She should be thinking of him, the eager kisses he planted on her mouth and neck, how his hands ran over her clothes when they were necking on a park bench...the greasy smell of fast food.

With less shame than she felt should be appropriate, Belle's mind drifted from Will's merry brown eyes to Rush's deep, dark ones. The kind that burned and the kind that twinkled when he smiled. They would burn while they watched her, skimming her from her lolling head to her hand busy between her thighs. But that was all he'd do, stare, not say anything, not do anything, just watch her...

Belle whimpered softly, sliding a finger inside herself and almost biting through her tongue when her hips bucked against her will. "D-doctor Rush..." she moaned, pumping a second finger inside. "Doctor Rush... _oh_..."

Was this situation wrong? Everything from touching herself to thoughts of her employer, to the fact that she was barely twenty four and he was at least twice her age? Yes. But it felt so right to moan, "I'm your assistant..." as she wound up tighter and tighter, bumping that little bundle of nerved with the heel of her palm. Imagining Nicholas Rush's chest heave just the slightest bit, to see the want in his eyes, as she'd seen it before again and again, to think he wanted her half as much-

"I'm your assistant!"

And everything else faded to white noise and spasming muscles, the air rushing from her lungs and colors bursting behind her eyelids...

* * *

Sometime ago, Rush had moved Belle to a child-sized desk in one corner of his office. Belle herself was tiny, but her knees bumped the bottom of the table where she sat on a small stool with her laptop and writing papers. If anyone saw her there, they never said anything. As for herself, Belle was content to be under Dr. Rush's watchful gaze. Not that there was much gazing today.

"Well what program did you run?"

About fifteen minutes after Belle came into work, Rush had gotten a call from a colleague who preceded to pepper him with questions about an Ancient computer system. Belle had a basic understanding of what the Ancients were because Rush had some files about them and made some theories in his notebooks. Aliens. Perhaps the very first aliens to step foot on Earth before humans were ever around. The project he'd been apart of had dissolved but there were still scientists like Dr. Rush working on it. Belle didn't get the feeling that her boss was boasting when he said he was one of the best in this field, and calls for help like this proved it.

Unfortuantely, like anyone in customer service would tell you, there were people who genuinely needed help, and then there were idiots who went looking for cannons to hunt rabbits with. Belle was leaning towards the 'idiot' scale of spectrum where this caller- _Volker_ , she thought his name was,-was concerned.

"Yes, I know you don't read Ancient well, and that you aren't a computer tech, yes, I am aware Volker," Dr. Rush rolled his eyes, rubbing his temple as he slouched down in his chair in a very _"good god, why me?"_ pose.

Belle finished copying the formula sprawled across the middle whiteboard. She was supposed to have them all recorded, and then erase them before lunch. It wasn't very slow work, exactly, but if Dr. Rush wasn't functioning on enough sleep and too much caffenine and nicotine, his handwriting got blurry. She was never sure if his chickenscratch or her tenuous understanding of this sophisticated branch of mathematics was the cause of most of her errors.

"Was this some of the technology found in New Mexico or on the moon?" Rush asked.

Belatedly, somewhere in the last line of notes she'd managed to turn her 1 into a 7, and Belle hadn't noticed it until now. Of course she hadn't. She was reaching for the White-Out, even got as far as unscrewing the cap when she stopped. Hmm...she peered through her lashes at Dr. Rush's desk, where his brow creased suddenly.

"You lost me. Which is it? You or Brody that was running the translation program? No I'm not asking you about computers! _Who_ ran the program?"

Belle put the brush back in the little white bottle and set it aside. Without fixing the 7 that should be a 1. She picked up the unaltered sheet of paper and brought it to the desk, wearing a rose-colored skirt and a navy blue shirt she'd unfastened the top few buttons on. It was all decent at first glance, but when she bent over to place the paper down, it gaped open and displayed what little cleavage she had in a lovely push-up bra.

"Eli? Well who the hell is Eli? Wallace? Oh, oh, right. Intern." Rush nodded, holding the phone momentarily in the crook of his neck as he-without double-checking it,-threw into a folder and tossed a filled notebook at her, the brown one he'd said she'd have to copy earlier in the week.

Disappointed, but not giving up quite yet, Belle flipped the cover open and slowly licked her index finger under the guise of moistening a finger to turn the page, while trying to convey what she'd rather have in her mouth. (She'd only done that once, with her first boyfriend Gaston, and it hadn't been very pleasant but somehow she felt it would be different with Rush.) And for one second, Belle thought, Rush's eyes froze on her pink tongue.

Then he scowled and covered the reciever. "I'm working," he hissed, turning back to Vollker over the phone. Belle held in a sigh and went back to her desk, giving up on their game for today. Obviously they wouldn't be playing. Might as well get started translating these notes, she figured, missing the look Rush shot her.

"Give me a few hours and I'll get back to you. No, sorry, I can't do anything right at the moment, my work has been rather... _overwhelming_."

* * *

There were no games played, Belle had even gone to lunch without orders on what she could eat. Rush wondered what devil on his shoulder got him to start that little ritual with his assistant. And wondered why she went along with it.

He didn't miss the funny little looks she kept giving him once he ( _fucking finally_ ) got off the phone with Volker. Only to waste another hour of his life when Brody, himself, called to give him an almost identical and useless report of what had happened, only since Brody knew computers there was additonal babble about programs and coding that Rush hadn't missed talking to Volker. In the end it turned out that one of the files they were attempting to translate was corrupted, incomplete, and the translator wouldn't work on incomplete data. Eli Wallace, their intern, had discovered it and said his I-pod used to do the same thing. Which was a whole other field of useless Rush was poorly equipped to handle today.

For fucks sake, why didn't they just call tech support then?

The whole day had passed by and Rush decided to catch up on grading papers as Belle went about collecting her purse and coat to go home in the front office. He felt...odd. Restless. Maybe he could skip his first cup of coffee tonight for a bit of tea. That still had caffeine in it, a little, right? Rush didn't think it had anything to do with his little assistant, but then he heard Belle's lilting voice call from up front and his chest did a funny stutter. Maybe he should lay off caffeine until later?

"I'm heading home now, Doctor Rush," Belle called.

No, that stutter had nothing to do with caffeine. It was a different stimulant: _Her_. Belle was not half as easy to ignore as he made out this morning. Not in that blouse that gave him an exquisite eyeful when she bent over, that lick against her slender finger, and those fucking blue eyes that shouldn't have been real. Honestly? Volker was lucky the phone didn't get tossed out a window-through the glass,-so he could punish her for being such a naughty little thing. But Belle was playing with fire, and he was not going to reduce her to ashes. He was going to resist.

"Good evening, Miss French."

There was a pause. "I can come back later, if you like? If you need help getting some notes done?"

Fuck.

Rush was glad the door was shut because he'd almost gotten up out the chair, raised his hand and opened his mouth to...to...to say what? Yeah, he could lure her back into the monster's lair, steal the fair princess away under the guise of equations and grading. (She was bloody _brilliant_ , it would only be a half-lie.) Instead, Rush sat his ass down in the chair, clenched his fists on his thighs, and in a deceptively steady voice, replied: "No. That will be all."

He would never admit that he stared at her pretty silhouette against the frosted glass like a lost puppy, wanting to trot over at her siren's call until the front door shut.

* * *

Belle wound up at Granny's Diner before she went home, surrounded by off-work faculty, students, and regular old families alike. She sat up at the counter, chatting with Ruby over a slice of apple pie. Emma had turned up from her job on the police force and wiped her rather impressive hot-chocolate mustache off her upper lip before she started talking about her son Henry.

"He's a pretty good student, but he hates math. I can't exactly set that 'good example' because I'm lucky to count to 100 sometimes."

Ruby leaned on her elbows, scrunching up her noes. "I can do, like, making change and stuff, but times tables and stuff? No."

"My boss says if you just understand how to count by the symbols, math is simple," Belle chimed in. People sometimes gave her odd looks for wearing below-the-knee skirts in the heat of late August, but for the most part since she started working for Dr. Rush, Belle had blossomed into a more confident person.

Emma raised an eyebrow curiously. "Easy for him to say, he's a math professor."

"Physics," Ruby corrected before Belle could, then nodded towards a group of kids by the window. "Believe me, you hear plenty of gripe about Physics 101's 'hard-ass professor'. What do you think Belle? Is he any good?"

A dreamy smile curled Belle's lips that she hid behind her hot cup of tea. "He's the best."

"Hmm. Well, could you maybe give Henry a little advice sometime?" Emma asked, either not noticing or choosing to ignore her little trance. "I'm serious. Division nearly made me pull my hair out in 4th grade, I'm useless here."

Belle was going to agree when Emma's phone rang jarringly. Frowning, the blonde answered it aftera peek at the ID. "Graham? What's wrong?"

The color drained out of Emma's face and she turned to Belle. This was bad news, obviously, but Belle didn't realize just how bad until the last five words she wanted to hear spilled from Emma's lips:

"Your father's in the hospital."

* * *

Belle had noticed her father had cut back drinking. She was proud of him for it. She'd also noticed, lately, that his hands were shaking a bit but when she asked, he said it was nothing to worry about. Belle felt like an idiot because her father would tell her not to worry if his brains were bleeding out his ears. Alcohol withdrawal was a very ugly process and apparently it sent her father to the ER when he collapsed in his shop.

Looking at her father lying in the bed, wires and tubes all hooked up to him, Belle felt like a thin thread was all that was keeping her from flying apart. And the thread felt like it was fraying apart.

She walked out the hospital and down the street with her arms wrapped around her belly. Her stomach was roiling and her head was fuzzy and Belle didn't realize where she was until she looked up and saw the mailbox for Dr. Rush's house ahead of her on the street. Apparently her subconscious had betrayed her. Why not? Still...

Belle shuffled to the ranch-style house, gnawing on her lip. She came around to the back patio and found the back French doors. There was a light on inside, and sitting at the breakfast nook, Rush was perched on a stool with a cigarette, looking at one of his notebooks, papers spread out around him. A little bubble of warmth began to expand in her chest, and Belle felt some of the fog lift. Instead of a dress shirt, Rush was wearing a sleeveless gray undershirt and jeans, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose and his hair mussed like he'd run his hand through it absently as was his habit.

She'd lost count of how often she wanted to smooth it down now.

Apparently she'd been standing there too long (when did she get on the patio) and when Rush looked up suddenly he choked on his smoke. He stumbled off the stool and went over to the French doors, and Belle did the same, slowly. The door opened a bit and Rush took the cigarette out his mouth, holding it away from her. A furrow appeared between his brows.

"Belle? What are you doing here?"

"Hi," Belle tried to smile. It probably looked like crap. "I just...I need you to..."

"To...what?" Rush frowned. He stared at her with those deep brown eyes, looking as confused as Belle was as to why she was here.

God. Why was she here? Belle felt very small and stupid standing on that patio suddenly. She was standing at the back door of her boss's house, at well past 8 at night, uninvited, with puffy red eyes, looking like she was about to have a breakdown, and more than likely, looking like one of those creepy stalker women begging for unwanted attention you heard about on TV.

What she wanted to say, what danced on the tip of her tongue, wouldn't help her case. _'I want you to talk to me. I don't care what about. Talk about Newton laws. I need you to help me forget, you're so good at that. I'm weak and you're so strong, can I please just let you hold me up for a few minutes? Please?'_

"I want..." Belle faltered, a terrible image of being dragged back to the hospital because Rush called the cops because he was creeped out by her clinginess mocking her. "I want...t-to remind you, not to forget you have a meeting with Miss Wray at 9 o'clock."

Rush didn't look particularly convinced with her lie about a metting. But, he nodded, turning his attention to the smouldering cigarette in his hand so he wouldn't have to look at her. "Thank you."

Belle gave him another frail smile, even though he couldn't see it, and she shuffled away into the night. Once she rounded the corner and started on the long walk home...Belle's face crumpled and she let out an ugly, lonely sob.

* * *

She looked like hell.

His little assistant's hair was falling out of her sloppy ponytail, the slight make-up she had on was smudged, she hugged her coat around her like she was freezing and her big blue eyes were bloodshot. Rush wanted to pull her inside and wrap her in his arms. She looked so fragile there, she might let him do it. Might let him peel off her coat and brush back her hair, and kiss her soft mouth-

 _Fuck_ , he was _sick_.

Belle didn't need him like that. She didn't need him to kiss her. She didn't need him to drag her into his lair when she was upset.

Rush stood there until he noticed Belle was gone and his cigarette was a tower of ashes. He wasn't sure why Belle had come to him. What she had to say that she proceed to cover with a lie.

But he did know someone had crossed a line, and there was only one thing for it.

When Rush got to the office the next morning, ahead of Belle, he threw out all the red pens and when Belle arrived, he had her return to her desk at the front. From now on, Belle was strictly his assistant. He was going to behave like he should have from the very start.

The games were over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative ending: Rush did take Belle into his arms! She cried, they kissed, they had comfort sex and heart-to-hearts, and things wrapped up much sooner. Yay!
> 
> This is alternative because...it doesn't happen that way. Sorry! :)


	6. VI. The Parting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush puts a stop to the games, and his assistant refuses to play by these new rules...

When Belle came into work the next morning, she was returned to her desk up front and noticed that wasn't the only change. She wound up skipping a row of numbers in the equation and it came up short, but instead of doing anything about it, Rush fixed it himself. In front of her. Without saying anything.

That alone threw Belle off for the better part of her morning, and the rest of the week followed in bizarre fashion.

Logically, Belle knew that this was a normal employer-employee relationship. He gave her the work, she did the work, he nodded and gave her new tasks, with a lunch break halfway through the day and she went home between five and five-thirty. There were no punishments, no red-rung mistakes, no cry of "Miss French!" except for the one time she had to fetch the fire extinguisher from the hall because Rush caught his wastebasket on fire smoking. (He wasn't supposed to do that, even Belle knew that.)

She'd come up with a half-dozen reasons lasting into the start of the second week. The least likely being that he was feeling under the weather, because he was still her crabby boss that chewed out students who dared to say he was too harsh and sneered at the faculty when they called him "antisocial" and "beastly". That hadn't changed at all. It was just how he acted towards her, coldly, detachedly professional. The most likely reason could have been her unplanned visit to his home when her father went into the hospital.

But, now that she wasn't functioning on stress, worry, and fading adrenaline, Belle knew she wasn't imagining how Rush looked at her, how his eyes turned almost black and his fingertips lingered when his hand pulled away. He wanted her, at least a little. And Belle wanted him. She just wasn't sure how she was supposed to show him.

The good news was that her father had been released from the hospital. Apparently he was more dehydrated than anything and the doctors gave him some little pills to help with cravings. Moe French, who as far back as Belle could remember never went a week without at least one bottle of beer, hadn't touched a drop of anything stronger than Earl Grey in almost two weeks. Belle was so proud and told him that constantly...because she was, and she hoped it would help him stay sober for good. Maybe he could put his frustrations into running Game of Thorns instead of drowning them?

Unfortunately, whatever was going on with her and Rush wasn't as easy to fix. He'd thrown out all his red pens and fixed whatever typos she made himself. (She made less typos now that there were no consequences, if that was his plan it was working like a charm.) It wasn't just the lack of power games anymore, Belle had tried more conventional methods.

Everything from wearing a shorter, snugger pencil skirt, to wearing a bit of jewelry to fancy up her appearance. She smiled as flirtatiously as she could when he bothered to look at her, and all it earned her was an order to file or e-mail something. And added a slight sting to her pride. And also a bit of embarrassment because she was acting like a schoolgirl with her first crush.

That did not stop her from giving it another try each time. She'd given him the newest revision of one of his formulas today, then bent on her elbows over the desk. Her father had _Caddyshack_ on the other night, and Belle tried her best sultry look in the style of Lacey Underall, who'd brought just about every man in the picture to his knees. Belle wanted a bit of that luck.

Instead, it got her a file thrust under her nose and a grunt of "here" that Rush didn't even bother to look up to deliver.

Belle sighed, and in a bit of desperation, she recalled the airheaded advice of Cosmo magazine. Well, it's not like the stinging rejection behind her breastbone could get any worse than this.

"I hope that all adds up for you," she said as breezily as she possible.

Rush paused his pen in mid-stroke, then looked up with a raised brow. "Pardon?"

"Uh, y'know...the equations? Add?" Belle smiled weakly, pointing at the formula on the desk. _'Oh god, please give me a pity-laugh, a pity-laugh?'_

Instead, he glanced from the paper, to her, and back before giving a slow, "Uh-huh."

And then he made a dissmissive gesture with his hand and went back to his work. Belle proved herself wrong, because that sting definitely worsened. But her mother had always said she was a stubborn little thing, and Belle felt inspired by Lacey...

She went to a photography studio she located online that promised professionalism and discretion. The photographer was a man, but Jefferson was quite proud to say he was "a flaming homosexual with an admiration for the female form" that brought him into offering risqué photo sessions. Belle felt much more at ease around the charming young man after his eccentric introduction, and bought her favorite photo from the set to frame.

The same frame, an oval-shaped one with elegant black wood around the glass, went on Rush's desk while he was out with a few red roses she'd acquired from Game of Thorns. There was no way to misunderstand her intentions, and actually, as Belle sat at her desk later that day, she started to fret about that.

What if Rush thought it was creepy? What if he fired her for sexual harrassment? Was it actually harrassment? It wasn't sexting if there were no phones involved, right? What did you call sending old-fashioned semi-nude pictures?

In the end, it was all for naught either way. The photograph and roses vanished like they had never existed, and Dr. Rush never mentioned them.

Belle had taken her hairbrush and tried to spank herself. All that accomplished was a stinging cheek and an utter sense of dissatisfaction. She'd tried getting Will to do it when they'd been kissing on his bed and it somehow turned into making out. He wouldn't even grab her ass, let alone strike it, even when she was rolled over on her belly with her bum in the air. He just blinked and seemed to assume she was waiting for him to grab a condom.

He _didn't_ blink an eye when she demanded the lights be off and her clothes stay on. He didn't hurt her, which was nice of course, but it left her even more dissatisfied than her self-spanking experiment. And she had Will collapsed on top of her. He was nice but...just _so_ vanilla. But since Rush hardly even looked at her, Belle supposed she'd have to settle for vanilla. It wouldn't be so bad, a life with Will. Just...bland.

And then she found the worm in the grass walking to work.

Belle sat at her desk and pulled out the stationary, neatly placing the long, slimy creature on the paper and tucking it into the matching cream-colored envelope. If this wasn't going to get a reaction out of Dr. Rush, then Belle would surrender. This was the end of her rope, and it was pointless to keep trying if Rush wasn't interested at all...

* * *

Belle didn't know that Nicholas Rush was very interested in her, peeking from the small crack opened in the front office door as she licked the gummed edge of the envelope, careful not to paper-cut her tongue.

Logically he knew that was why she was slowly licking the envelope, but physically his blood was running south and his mouth ran dry. The Belle French he first hired had been pretty, with a tiny spark of something inside, of course. But this woman was so far removed from that girl, someone bright and shining as any star he'd ever studied and twice as radiant.

When he came into his office to see the back of a picture frame and a rose bouquet on his desk, Rush didn't know what it was. Then he came around and he didn't think he'd ever gotten so hard so fast in his entire life at the image captured in tasteful black-and-white.

His assistant, on her knees, legs pressed together and facing the camera as she bit her dark lip. One arm curled over her apparently bare breasts censurously, the other hand reached up into her touseled dark curls. The only thing she seemed to be wearing were black lace stockings and a garter belt. It was too easy to imagine her in glorious color, flushed and wanton before him, eager to use her plush lips-

Rush slammed the picture down in the bottom of a drawer and sat with both hands on the desk in front of him, trying to summon up his most lust-killing thoughts to make the raging hard-on die away. When did that little minx get _that_ taken? Logically, Rush knew he should get rid of it. Throw it away. Burn it before it could be used for blackmail material. But he didn't. It still sat in that drawer, taunting him, haunting his dreams.

With Belle licking the envelope that way, it was all Rush could do to not burst in and throw her on the floor like a caveman.

He silently moved down the hall to the restroom, scrubbing his face with cold water in an attempt to wash the perversion away. It didn't work, but it cooled his ardor. How couldn't it? Belle was young, bright, beautiful. He was twice her age, cranky, and with his crooked nose and scruffy face, he was decidedly unsuited for her.

The ridiculous, damning thought that _she_ wanted to have _him_ kept him from looking at her as he made a proper entrance through the office. He heard that clicking of keyboard keys and felt her blue eyes on him, but he didn't dare look. He'd made her and every other assistant suffer, this was more than his due.

Only...

The mail the next day was the same old story. Things that needed to be done, things that could wait, complaints from student and parents alike, blah blah blah. And then there was one envelope with Belle's handwriting on it. This must've been what she'd been licking so naughtily yesterday. Rush hesitated a moment before he carefully opened the thing and pulled out the paper. It was folded up, and once he had it smoothed out on the desk-

Rush smothered a gasp, sliding back in his chair. A dead, dried worm lay on the paper, staining the crisp stationary. It was the most disgusting mail Rush had ever recieved.

It was brilliant.

She was _bloody_ brilliant.

Refusing to acknowledge the thrilling heat thrumming through his veins at the words, Rush slung one of his drawers opened and fumbled for the single red pen he'd kept at the back of the drawer. One circle wasn't nearly enough. A thick red ring of circles surrounded the dead worm by the time Rush was done. This was a big misake. Very bad behavior. It needed to be corrected.

" _Miss French! Come to my office!_ "

* * *

Belle almost jumped up and ran to the door when she heard it, but a very nervous looking senior student named Chloe was shifting in a chair against the wall. Belle wasn't sure what she'd been called in for, but no student enjoyed having to face Rush in his office. It didn't seem right to do this now.

She got up and stuck her head inside timidly. "Uh, sir, Chloe Armstrong is here-"

"She can wait out there then, you get in here. _Now_."

Belle bit back a grin and slid inside, the door softly thudding shut behind her as she calmly walked to the desk. Inside, of course, were a swarm of giddy butterflies, but on the outside Belle liked to think she was composed. Dr. Rush was too, sitting at his desk with his fingers steepled in front of him. The red-circled dried worm lay on the desk between them.

 _'Finally!'_ Belle felt a little smirk break free as she leaned on her elbows. The smile didn't waver as she waited on Dr. Rush to make his move.

His move appeared to be standing up, first and foremost. He circled around the desk until he was directly behind him. She heard something like a sign. Or a deep breath.

"Now pull up your skirt."

Wait..."Why?" Belle asked, not turning around from her position.

"You're not worried I'm going to _fuck_ you, are you?" Rush said quietly, almost tauntingly. "Not interested. Now. Pull up your skirt. Or pull it down. Move it."

Before Belle could reply, (with what she wasn't sure,) a voice called out suddenly, "Belle? Belle?"

Belle swallowed. Will. Why now? Oh. They had a lunch-date. Damn it. She turned over her shoulder towards Rush, but...he didn't look worried in the least about getting caught. He was still staring down at her, in his dark jeans and that white button-down, wearing his brown suit jacket, his hands folded behind his back.

"I said, pull up your skirt."

Belle swallowed again. "Will! I can't have lunch today, I'm in the middle of something. I'll talk to you later!"

"Oh..." Will sounded a little disappointed, and Belle almost felt sorry for him. But he was right outside the damn door. "Right then. Talk to you later, love."

Belle didn't remember to breathe until Will's silhouette moved away from the glass. Then, licking her dry lips, she rucked her skirt up over her waist. She wished she hadn't worn that pencil skirt now. Oh well-

"Pull down your underwear and tights," Dr. Rush ordered. Belle paused, and he added lowly, "I told you, I'm not going to fuck you."

Belle wasn't sure what he was going to do then, if it involved her undressing. But...it wasn't like she was opposed to that. And she trust Dr. Rush implicitly, so, the tan-colored pantyhose and her underwear were tugged down to her thighs and she tried to ignore the chill tickling her bared skin as she leaned on the desk.

Rush closed his eyes for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts. Belle was tiny all over. But her small, round ass was perfection. Every inch of her was so, so beautiful. His fingertips just grazed her pale skin, ghosting over the curve. Before he could dwell on it, he unbuckled his belt and opened his flies. He was more than half-hard and having that tiny glimpse at the soft patch of curls between her plump thighs when she tugged her panties down dancing behind his eyelids brought him to full attention in his hand.

_God..._

Belle heard Dr. Rush's breathing grow heavier after the soft jingling of his belt and zippers stopped. There was an unusual noise in rhythm with his breathing, a dry sort of rubbing noise. Then his breath became a soft gasp and his hand caught her shoulder.

She stayed facing directly ahead, listening. A soft sort of moan was nearly inaudible, followed by a few stuttered gasps. Those noises very nearly had Belle turn over her shoulder, but then the hand there tightened, like Rush was afraid to let go. Something hot and damp spilled over her bare bottom, something splashing her shirt, too, and Rush clung to her a moment more.

Then he slowly let go and his fly zipped up again.

Oh.

_Oh..._

Rush sat in his chair, heavy-lidded and utterly undone. His leather belt was undone and he raked a shaking hand through his long hair. Belle would have done that for him, if he let her. She didn't know what to do, standing there propped up against the desk while Dr. Rush sat there trying to compose himself, looking so lost and distant it was all she could do not to wrap around him.

But then he took a deep breath, a mask slide into place, and he pushed a file towards her. "Copy these, and then go to lunch. Have a sandwich," he instructed, giving her a breathless, weak smile. "No mayonaisse. Oh and, uh," he waved his hand absently. "Send, uh, send in whatshername."

Belle nodded, woodenly pulling up her underthings and tugging her skirt down. She hoped she looked presentable, but Chloe was still so nervous Belle probably could have had her hair on fire as she sent the girl in and she wouldn't notice. Once Chloe was inside, Belle headed to the restrooms and grabbed a handful of toliet paper to clean up.

She supposed she should have expected it to be Rush's seed spilled on her skin and shirt. (Not much on her shirt, and Belle wasn't sure if she was glad or not about that.) But it still gave her this strange...this sort of...

" _Doctor Rush_ ," she bit her lip through a smile and a bizarre euphoria, leaning back against the stall as she slipped a hand under her skirt.

She was drenched. She didn't understand it, and she was far too keyed up to properly care. Belle circled her folds slowly, shuddering when she bumped her clit. Red circles and math signs danced behind her eyelids and for a moment she deeply regretted missing the chance to see what Rush's cock looked like.

Belle looked forward to the day when she could use her memory instead of her imagination, until then, she was generous with her mental fantasy, imagining Rush had her on her knees before him instead of bent over the desk. Yet.

"Cock," she mumured. It sounded dirty, but so right, and Belle bucked into her hand eagerly. "Put your prick in my mouth... _screw me_..."

Belle reached her hand inside her shirt, squeezing her breast. She imagined it was Rush that had her pinned against his whiteboards, ravaging her with his ink-stained hands. His brown eyes burning, the brown seared out by black, eager to swallow her whole. Oh god.

"M-mayonnaise..." she whimpered, distantly aware she was speaking nonsense now but too far gone to care, crooking her fingers when they entered to bump that lovely, sensitive place inside her. "Roses, n-no toppings! Oh! Oh Doctor Rush!"

She was louder than she intended, but the bathroom could have been full at the moment her climax washed over her, leaving her a shaking, boneless mess propped against the stall, a pleasure-drunk grin spreading over her face.

" _Nick_..."

* * *

While Belle sat in Granny's Diner with a book she'd stopped to pick up from a nearby shop, Coming Out As A Dominant/Submissive, describing the joys of embracing the full scale of human life and the pleasure of pain from a kind hand...

Nicholas Rush was having what could only be described as a breakdown in his office after he'd dealt with Chloe Armstrong. The girl had been asking after how one would apply for an internship as a researcher and if she weren't one of his best pupils, Rush would've told her to sod off so he could go jump out a window and end it all. Instead, he gave her the name of some sites and pamphlets and sent her on her way before he could do anything monstrous to her.

Fuck.

What the fuck had he been thinking? Well that was the problem, actually, he hadn't. Not with the right head anyway. Fuck! He'd spilled his seed all over his assistant's perfect little ass like she was...like...fuck! Even animals didn't do that! Fuck, fuck, _fuck!_

Somehow, Rush had moved his breakdown up to the front office. He was staring at the framed equations Belle had made mistakes on. He'd gone further than he'd ever pushed an assistant before, much too far. He just...it was just so easy with Belle. She was so willing and eager to please him and he didn't doubt for a moment if he asked her to go down on her knees she'd do it and wait for his next order.

His cock gave a twitch that made Rush loathe himself anew.

The next thing he knew, he was tearing the frames off the wall and smashing them on the ground, stomping over the mess to his office and tossing the sexy picture against the far wall. Rush yanked out the contracts of all the past girls who hadn't lasted.

Belle's pretty face was on top, and Rush spared a glance for the sensible girls who left. No one should be allowed near him. He set the whole thing on fire in the parking lot. (The campus would blame students for the ash anyway.) And there was something calming about watching the pages turn black and float away as ash on the breeze before he had to drop the bundle...

He needed to be calm for what came next.

* * *

The office was a mess when Belle came back. The frames holding her mistakes were ripped off the walls, frames splintered, glass ground into the carpet. Every single one. She closed the door behind her, wondering what on Earth happened when Rush's voice called out, "Miss French, comes to my office and bring you test scores with you."

Belle obeyed, digging her scores out of a filing cabinet and stepping into the office. The irrational fear that some form of burglary took place faded into confusion, as Belle looked down and found her risque picture lying on the floor, the glass shattered and photograph wrinkled. Dr. Rush was sitting at his desk, his face a blank mask. It was like a parody of the first time she stepped into this room, only instead of being composed, Dr. Rush looked like he was barely hanging on.

"What happened-"

"Are you pregnant?"

"N-no, what-"

"Do you plan to be?"

"No."

"Do you live in a house or an apartment?"

"House."

"Alone?"

"With my father..." Belle swallowed, unsure where this was going. She knew Rush well enough to know something was upsetting him, but why was he asking her these questions again?

Dr. Rush withdrew the remote for the lighting above the whiteboards, but Belle didn't turn her head. She didn't take her eyes off him, which seemed to force him to drop his gaze, giving a disdainful look to her crumpled paper. "Are those your test scores?"

"Yes," Belle nodded holding them out to him but Rush held up his hand, getting to his feet and slowly making his way around the desk. His hair was falling in his face, and Belle wanted to swept it back so badly her fingers ached.

"Do you...do you really want to be my assistant?" he asked then, so quiet not Belle wasn't sure if she heard him right.

Her face softened. "Yes, I do."

Rush turned his face towards her at last, giving her a searching sort of look Belle couldn't understand until he suddenly went back to pacing around until he stood behind her.

"This isn't about typos, e-mails, and erasers, is it Belle?"

"No, Dr. Rush," Belle murmured.

A scowl creased Rush's face and he stood behind her suddenly. "What was that?" he asked roughly, irritated by her weak voice.

" _No_ , Dr. Rush," she repeated, stronger.

"Belle. I like you, but I don't think I'm going to offer you the job."

It felt like having the rug ripped from under her feet, a punch in the gut, and a slap across the face all at once and Belle gasped, "Why?"

"It's your behavior," Rush said, his face frustratingly void of expression as Belle turned on him.

"What about my behavior?"

The professor paused for a heartbeat. But Belle saw the flicker behind his mask. "It's very bad. I'm sorry. You can collect your things."

That queasy, lurching feeling grew stronger as Belle realized he meant it. He was sending her away. "Time out."

"Time out?" Rush blinked. "You're fired."

"No you're fired!" Belle snapped back, aware she was speaking nonsense but something was cut and bleeding inside her and it was all she could do to keep from crying.

"You are fired!" Rush raised his voice for the first time, using his height difference to loom over her as much as he could. "I don't want you, now _get out!_ "

The slapping noise and the sting on her hand were all that confirmed Belle really slapped Rush. Because to her eyes, one minute he was there and the next minute he stood with his head turned to the side, a reddening palm print on his unshaven cheek. His jaw tightened before he whipped his head back, hissing through his teeth, "Why did you did you spill coffee on the Project Icarus files?"

"I was fixing your shredder, you saw me," Belle stood up taller.

"Why are there books in your desk?" he sneered. "I told you to get rid of them, I don't want you sitting there at the desk with your nose caught in a book when you should be working for me. I saw them, I know they're still there!"

"I'll move them."

Rush looked like he was about to give her another reason when he just stopped cold, swallowing it down. He searched her eyes, blue and bright with tears she refused to shed, and whatever it was he must have found it. Or maybe he didn't? Either way he deflated completely, his tense shoulders sagging and suddenly Rush looked ancient and worn as he turned away, sitting in one of the padded chairs by the coffee table. Slats of pale sunlight joined stripes of shadow where the blinds were drawn in the window, covering him in patterns as he sat with his back to her, slumped in the chair holding his head.

"You have to go." He said finally, staring off into the space ahead of him. "I won't be able to stop. I _can't_ stop myself."

"Don't," Belle pleaded softly.

Rush shut his eyes, trying to block her out. Belle came to him, instead, standing right at his shoulder by the chair.

"I cannot do this anymore," he whispered hoarsely.

Belle bit her lip, gently reaching her hand out to his tousled hair. "I want to know you..."

Tears rolled down her face but she barely noticed. She brushed the silver-streaked hair away from Rush's haggard face, watching his expression smooth out as he melted into the soft caress. It was everything Belle had ever wanted, Nicholas Rush relaxed beneath her hand, the tension drained from his lean frame.

But only for a moment.

Then Rush curled away, a look of disgust crossing his face and Belle honestly couldn't tell who his disgust was for anymore. She thought it might be himself though, and she hadn't expected the swell of pity to rise inside her as her hand fell away. He didn't need to protect her. He could have her, have whatever he wanted. That was what she wanted too.

But then Rush pulled out a brown envelope from inside his jacket, looking at it for a long moment before, without ever looking over his shoulder at her, he extended the envelope to her.

"I'm so sorry for what's happened between us, Belle. I made a terrible mistake with you, I can only hope you understand. Be assured, you can count on me for an excellent reference."

Belle didn't take the letter. It sat there, mocking her from inside the envelope, and she swayed unsteadily as the the air left her lungs. No. No. No she wouldn't accept this.

"Get out," Rush said.

Belle choked back a sob, sniffling weakly. She would never know if it was her pathetic stifled sobs or her ver presence that caused it, but Rush finally looked up at her with a snarl and a venom in his eyes as he barked, " _Get out!_ "

She managed to take the letter with her shaking hands and make her way out the door with her head held high. She looked back to find him not even looking at her anymore, just brooding in his office. The sunlight faded, perhaps because of some clouds outside, but it seemed poetic to Belle.

Hot tears streamed down her face when she stepped out of the dark office, packing up her belongings into a cardboard box. As she stepped out into the hall, hugging the box to her chest witht he damnable letter on top, Belle recalled the assistant she saw leaving when she was hired.

For some reason, Belle doubted that girl had been crying with a broken heart. Or that she let out loud, ugly sobs when she stepped outside the university's doors for the last time...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I predict maybe two more chapters, including the epilogue? This might be the fastest fic I've ever written. I'm kinda proud.


	7. VII. The Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After he thinks he's gone too far, Rush sends Belle away. Belle leaves, but not forever.

For the rest of the week, Belle got up and dressed like she was going to work. Then she sat down on a bench outside the university and just...sort of sat there, for a while. Feeling sorry for herself, mostly.

Chloe Armstrong found her there on the third day. A Thursday. She asked, "Miss French? Are you alright? Did you forget something?"

"No," Belle forced a smile to her face. "Just cooling my heels. Um, am I bothering someone?"

"No, no, of course not, I was just..." the younger girl bit her lip. "Y'know, just wondering. Doctor Rush has a new girl working for him now. I was just, well, wondering what happened."

She was gone before Belle could ask her what that meant. But Friday, Belle stopped going altogether. Logically she knew she should start looking for another job. But when she opened the envelope, purely from curiosity when she got home, Belle found a severance check for over six hundred dollars. Significantly more than her paycheck would have been.

Belle tore it up and didn't dare tell her father.

Monday her father _did_ notice that she'd overslept and hadn't bothered to change out of her teacup-print pajamas when she shuffled down to make breakfast. He looked up from the newspaper for a moment and asked, "Are you feeling alright, Belle? You're running late for work, aren't you?"

Belle dug out a carton of eggs and set a frying pan on the stovetop instead of looking at him. "No. I'm not working at the university anymore."

Moe hummed, the rustle of the paper letting Belle know he left it at that and returned his attention to the paper. And then he added: "Never liked you working for him anyway. You hear bad things about those old professors with young assistants, I was worried about you."

Belle cracked the egg with a bit more force than necessary.

After two weeks from the day of being fired, and a significant amount of what a stronger person would call sulking, Belle decided to get back on her feet. Dr. Hopper had said something like every new chapter of your life begins with a single step. So, Belle made a step, checking personal ads for people who expressed similar interests to Rush's.

Or at least, that's what Belle _thought_ they had.

But the first one tried to grab for her breasts before they even made it out the door in what, at first, Belle thought was a handshake. Eww. Another told her to pee on his patio and when she declined he said, "I thought you were a masochist?" (Which she was not, through her research, Belle identified firmly as a _submissive_ , and did not crave pain or humiliation, thank you.) The final straw was a weird little man who asked to be tied to an industrial oven turned on high, while she threw tomatoes at him and he thanked her profusely.

Belle gave him Dr. Hopper's office number and went home.

No one was right for her. No one was Nicholas Rush. So, Belle resigned herself to working in Game of Thorns with her father. It made him happy but Belle felt stifled and sluggish while she tallied up orders and balanced the books faster than ever. It was boring. Too simple, too unrewarding. Only the thought that Dr. Rush would be displeased with her falling apart so easily kept her from taking her disposable razor and dragging it across her thigh one evening in the shower.

Then, shortly after the Tomato-Cooker Man, Belle was sitting in the employee breakroom of Will's department store and he pulled out a ring. He asked her to marry him. And Belle said yes because...she really wasn't sure what else to do.

Will's mother was rather insistent that Belle wear her wedding dress. Will didn't talk much about his parents and Belle had only met them once, when they non-too-subtly tried to press them into a double-wedding with his sister which was _doubly_ as embarrassing for Will as it was for Belle. This was not going to be a double wedding, though, and it was still a good three months away.

But as Mrs. Scarlet cinched up the dozen of tiny buttons fastening the back, muttering how she must've been slimmer than Belle at her age, (Belle wasn't one-hundred percent on if that was a dig at her weight, but the skirts pooled around her feet by at least two inches regardless,) this wedding felt very, very close. Especially when Mrs. Scarlet put the little headband veil thing on and cooed over the image presented in the mirror.

"Ooh! Aren't you lovely? I can't wait to see Will's face when you come down the aisle, you'll be such a beautiful blushing bride!" she gushed, clapping her hands together. "Now, where did I put those slippers?"

The skirt was full and poofy, delicate beading on the strapless bodice. Belle's hair was twisted back in a messy sort of fashion to pull it out her face, and she tugged the veil off while Mrs. Scarlet wandered off to find her shoes. Belle had given very little input on the wedding so far, actually, neither had Will. Mostly it was Mrs. Scarlet's doing, and Moe had been over the moon to provide flower arrangements when the time came.

Belle couldn't recognize herself in the mirror wearing this fluffy, fairytale gown. It was something for a blushing bride, and Belle was not blushing. She wasn't even a particularly enamored bride. This was not what...

Unbidden, a memory of Jane fleeing Whitcross in the middle of the night, dashing back to Thornfield Hall to reunite with Mr. Rochester sprang forth. Jane had turned down a position as the parson's wife because she did not want to be the perfect parson's wife, even though that would have been an easy and safe route to go. But...

_Do the brave thing and bravery will follow._

She bolted down the stairs, not bothering to put on shoes. Will was sitting on the couch with his father and both men turned as she ran down the stairs. Will covered his eyes and cried, "No! I'm not supposed to see you yet!"

Belle tossed her ring down on the table and shot out the door, down the street, before those words registered over the thrumming of blood in her ears.

The slap of her barefeet against the rough sidewalk and the few looks Berkley residents gave the tiny brunette running up to the university campus was hardly a distraction. Belle did not stop until she burst through the outer door to Dr. Rush's office, nearly bowling over some blonde in a pantsuit, and flying into Rush's inner sanctum with her hair tousled and her face pink and sweating.

Rush was standing by the half-covered whiteboard and the marker slipped from his suddenly nerveless grip at her interruption. He gaped at her for a long moment, at Belle in a princess wedding dress with her disarrayed curls and wide blue eyes, and then she breathlessly declared:

"I have something to say; I love you."

Rush stood there like a complete idiot. She...no. He shook his head and sat the eraser in his hand down. "Belle, you can't be here."

Belle might've just rolled her eyes a little, a giddy smile overtaking her face. "I love you," she repeated.

Rush inhaled deeply. "I'm sorry, but I don't believe that to be true."

"Well it is true!"

"This matter was resolved when I recieved your cancelled severance check," he said coolly, not looking at her as he lightly grasped her elbow and tried to push her towards the door. "I-"

Belle spun around, breaking free of his arm. Why wasn't he listening! "I love you," she repeated a third time, her big blue eyes earnest. Because she loved this man so very much, even when he wasn't making it easy!

It took a moment, but Rush finally met her eyes. There was something wary in them, something unwilling, but mostly, just something unspeakably saddened. "We can't do this twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week," he said, like she hadn't _willingly_ bent over his desk to be paddled and taken on his every task with a will to please.

"Why not?"

Rush just looked at her for another long moment, like he was looking for the lie.

Not that there was one. Belle marched to his desk and perched gracefully on his chair, arranging the full skirts and lifting her chin as she met his questioning gaze with a challenging one of her own.

Rush looked at Belle. She looked smaller and softer in that poofy monster of a gown. Virginal white. A sacrifice to the beast. An innocent maiden that didn't know what monster she was teasing. Fine. He'd prove her wrong.

"Put your palms down on the desk in front of you," he ordered.

Belle smirked a bit, assuming the position without breaking eye-contact. "I want to make love," she murmured, and Rush swallowed.

"Keep both feet on the floor until I come back," he said, sweeping out of the office and shutting the door behind him. Without looking back he dismissed his confused new assistant and sat down in one of the wooden chairs against the wall facing the door that hid Belle. And he waited.

He expected her to last an hour maybe. And the hour passed rather quickly. Followed by another. And another. At four hours in, the windows darkening outside, Rush got up to pace the stiffness away and he suspected Belle hadn't moved either. But he didn't dare look for himself. This wouldn't be so easily resolved...

Rush left the office and circled around the back of the university to the rear parking lot. He stood by the dumpster he'd sent Belle crawling through months ago and lit up a cigarette, peering through the windows of his office. The light was on and he could just make out the top of Belle's head if he stood just so. Down to about her pert nose.

Pulling out his cellphone, Rush dialed his office number. He waited for the dial tone to start beeping in his ear and saw Belle turn her head. She bobbed out of sight for a minute but then rose back up. Had she just tried to move the reciever with her mouth? Not even willing to cheat?

Before Rush could dwell on it for long, another person appeared. That skinhead boyfriend. Well, fiancé if the dress were a clue.

* * *

Will Scarlet came bursting in through both doors and Belle's fluttering heart sank.

"Oh. It's you."

"Yes it's me-What are you doing in here?" Will stopped short of whatever he was going to say, eyeing her position oddly.

"Your trespassing Will, leave."

"What?"

"Trespassing. An unlawful advancement on another's property. Leave."

Will faltered, spreading his hands in an all-encompassing gesture. "Is this something...sexual?"

Belle would probably always think Will was a nice guy. But had he always been this dense? Her fraying temper caused her to give him a withering glance and a sarcastic tilt of her eyebrows that she couldn't help but think Rush would enjoy. "Does this look sexual to you?"

"I don't know!" he cried out, frustrated. "I saw you had those books or whatever, but this-I don't know what _this_ is! Just, look, love, let's go home and we can talk about it, yeah?"

"Will," Belle said firmly. "The wedding is off."

Her former fiance didn't seem to accept that, and he circled around the desk and lifted her up in a bear hug. "Look, let's just get you home-"

"No!" Belle screeched, wriggling and kicking her feet as Will pulled her away. He was halfway to the door when she landed a blow between her legs she would feel sorry about later, causing them both to crumple to the carpet.

Belle hopped up quickly and picked the chair back up, plopping down with her hands palm down on the desk before Will was even on his feet again. He looked at her with an expression a kicked puppy might wear, which was probably more approriate than Belle wanted to admit.

"Belle-"

"Will. I don't want to marry you. _Get out_."

For a moment, it looked like he was going to protest some more. But then Will just closed his mouth and shook his head, staggering away. He was a good man, Will. Not the right man for her. But surely he wouldn't be alone for long. Belle settled in for a long wait, hoping Rush didn't find out about this incident.

Which, unbeknownst to her, he already did, gazing in wonder at the scene he could barely see being played out in his office.

"Belle..."

* * *

Moe French came bursting in the next morning so early Belle thought he might have dashed in behind one of the janitors. It was a long night, she was tired but still alert and upright, and trying to ignore her bladder. Dr. Rush would be back soon.

"Belle!" Moe looked as tired as Belle felt. "Oh Belle! What's he done to you? I called Will when you didn't come home and-Darling what is this all about? What's he done?"

"Papa," Belle inhaled deeply. "Sit-"

"I will not sit down! Belle, has he hurt you? Has he kidnapped you?"

Belle almost laughed. Maybe she was more tired than she thought. "I'm not tied up Papa! Was the door locked? No. I can leave whenever I want." Which she didn't. That seemed to be the part no one could understand.

Moe paced in front of the desk for a few minutes and Belle almost asked him to sit again when he snapped, "What is this? Is this a cry for help? Some sort of plea for attention? From who, Belle? From me? Will? Rush? _God_ , Belle, he's old enough to be your _father_ , don't tell me that's it."

"Papa. I love him. And he loves me. It's just a...a _different kind of love_ than what you know."

"Don't tell me that! A man who loves you doesn't leave a fragile girl tied up in his office!"

" _I'm not tied up_!" Belle repeated, wishing Will were here again. At least Will hadn't been as mentally exhausting as her father was being. "Rush has never hurt me, Papa, I just realized what I want. I've made my own choice-"

"It's not the right choice, Belle. Now you're coming home with me-"

"No."

Something about that reply seemed to pop the bubble of ignorance surrounding Moe French. He blinked twice, looked at her like he was seeing Belle for the very first time, and stepped back.

"You're not my daughter, not anymore."

It stung. It stung sharply. But this was his choice as much as it was Belle's. She just made the brave leap while Moe took the same unseeing path he always followed.

"Mama would be proud that you quit, Papa," she said to her father's back, hoping if he never spoke to her again he'd remember that much. "Don't go back just because of me. Please."

Moe gave her one quick look over his shoulder as the door slammed shut.

And then she was alone.

* * *

News of this "Belle French Hunger Strike" spread quickly. At first it was a few curious college students, then the staff, and then came the journalists. Belle only interacted with them a bit that first day because she was feeling so drained and foggy. She'd wet herself, which was more than a little humiliating, but either her visitors didn't notice or were too polite to say anything. By the time the second night was coming to a close outside the office, Belle started wondering how many people were real or if she were imagining them.

Camille Wray from Human Resources wanted to talk, but gave up when she realized Belle didn't. Belle wasn't trying to send a message to the university and once Camille grasped that she left her be, mostly. A few girls came in with feminist pamphlets. One came in and said something about there being better ways to get attention.

One reporter tried to wrangle the reason for her strike out into the open. The wage gape? Equal rights? The human condition? Environmental concerns?

Ruby showed up to keep her company, unfazed by the one-sided conversation. She brought a slice of Granny's lasagna that went uneaten because Belle didn't want to smush her face in it like a pig because she couldn't lift a fork. Still, it was the thought that counted and Belle gave her a weary smile that earned her a wolfish, friendly grin.

Amanda Perry showed up for a quarter of an hour, praising her audacity. "Nick Rush? The singlemost isolated person I have ever met," she confided. "If anyone's going to reach him, it's you. And that dead worm? Absolutely brilliant."

At one point, Mrs. Scarlet dragged her husband in and sternly told Belle that she wanted the dress back. _Dry-cleaned_.

Dr. Hopper was the one Belle really wasn't sure if she imagined or not. He sat across from her in his tweed suit and glasses, talking about how monks used to wear thorn crowns, and nuns sewed thorns into their robes, proving their devotion through pain.

"It's not a new phenomena, really. It's a tradition of sorts in Catholicism, and there's nothing unhealthy about a dominant/submissive relationship as long as it is safe, sane, and consensual. Who says love has to be gentle?"

* * *

Rush had enough vacation days that he could more than likely retire through them. So, with that crowd of lookie-loos packed around the office and filling the parking lot by the dumpster to peer through the window, he went to his empty house. He skipped dinner the first night and went straight to bed. The second night he microwaved a Swanson meal and sat at the counter with a fork in hand.

The coloful peas and carrots, the gravy on the steak, and the creamy mashed potatoes mocked him. All he could think of was Belle sitting at the desk and his slight appetite vanished. Like the tray vanished into the bin. His dinner was two glasses of whiskey, and he climbed into bed. Then Rush got to thinking about Belle again, in that ridiculous dress, wedged into his office chair upright and he rolled out of bed in his shorts, tossing the blanket down on the hardwood floor and sleeping there.

It was cold and the hardwood lived up to it's name. But it didn't seem right that Rush should eat a good dinner and sleep in a warm bed when little, daring Belle French was still sitting in his office.

Why didn't she just give up? She could do so much better than a monster like him. He was disgusting, and he didn't even know why he was this way. He went to a shrink once, and only once, who went on this long spiel about dominance that just made Rush think of gorillas beating on their chests. Which didn't suit him at all. Rush just pushed and pushed until the assistant snapped and fled.

At least...until Belle French. Exquisite, willing, brave little Belle.

Day 3 saw a few local stations with news vans parked outside the university. Reporters who knew nothing stood around speculating about the Belle French Hunger Strike and several groups with various banners stood around, each one championing their cause. Some people were just there to ogle.

Rush stayed in his house, at first trying to do some work, then just scribbling around in Ancient symbols, and then just sitting at the counter with Belle's bright face taunting his mind's eye. At some point he wandered out in the late afternoon to get the paper and Belle was near the front pages, surprisingly. A pretty photo of her was at the top, and Rush carefully read the entire thing, word for word. There was a quote from Belle, taken, they said, on her first day of the strike:

**_"One way or another, I've always suffered. I don't know why, exactly. But I'm really not so scared of suffering now. I feel more than I've ever felt, and found someone to feel with. To play with, to love, in a way that feels right for me. I hope he knows I can see him suffering, too, and that I want to love him."_ **

That alone would have had Rush fishing his keys out the bowl in the hall table, but the next part-gruesome speculation on whether she would starve or the dehydration she was showing signs of would catch up first, and if she was willing to go through either for her cause,-had Rush dropping the paper and jumping into his Toyota.

With the world's longest stop at a gas station for a fountain drink lemonade the only detour, Rush drove straight to the university in the early evening. The student crowd was long gone, but the protest crowd was substantially larger than it had been when he'd seen it last. They also all stared at him and Rush darted inside with the plastic drink cup before any reporter could hassle him.

Surprisingly, there was no one inside the building. That just made it easier to hurry up to his office where Belle was still sitting.

Right where he'd left her.

Belle was slumped over the desk now, dark circles under her shut eyes and a bit of mascara smudging her pale cheeks. Her lips were thin and dry-looking, and the smell of urine made Rush's chest tighten with guilt. Good god. Why had he pushed her this far, this hard? Belle's little hands were still perfectly placed on the desk, even as she lay there passed out and limp, and Rush wanted nothing more than to scoop up his little sleeping beauty and take her home and clean her up and tuck her into bed.

First, he had to make sure she still wanted that...

He carefully held up her head, pressing the straw to her lips. "Belle," he spoke softly. "Drink sweetheart."

He saw the liquid draw up the straw as Belle's eyes fluttered open, taking small sips of sugary, watery lemonade. Her pale lips gained a little color as they curled into a wan smile around the straw, her heavy-lidded gaze meeting his. Oh, Rush smiled, pulling the straw from her lips and bending down, close enough to nuzzle into her still-soft curls and delicate ear if he wanted to.

"Let me take you home, sweetheart?"

* * *

Belle wasn't sure if it was really Rush or not. She'd seen the candelabra from _Beauty and the Beast_ dancing on the whiteboard sometime in the afternoon before she passed out.

But then the plastic straw pressed between her lips and a rough-but-gentle voice whispered in her ear to drink. And she obeyed, cold, sweet liquid quenching her parched throat. The sugar hit her bloodstream and Belle lifted her head up to find Rush there beside her, his arm curling around her shoulders and a hesitant smile blooming on his face.

"Let me take you home, sweetheart?"

Somehow, Belle knew he didn't mean her father's house. She nodded wearily, and the next thing she knew, Rush had her scooped up in his arms like a bride, heedless of the stains and smell of her stolen dress, holding her like she was the most precious of cargo.

And, Belle thought drowsily, her head falling against his shoulder as a restful darkness closed in around her, perhaps, she was...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an epilogue to go and that's all folks!


	8. VII. Going Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush returns to Belle and takes to a house which finally becomes home...

Belle wasn't certain how Rush got her into the car. She had dozed off before he even left the office, her head filled with the scent of Rush and her tongue tingling with lemon-flavor. She was awoken by the gentle rocking of the car turning right, her head painlessly bumping the window. Rush's house was in front of her. And Rush himself was coming to the car door, opening it up and leaning in to pet her cheek softly.

"We're home sweetheart," he murmured softly. "D'you think you can stand for just a bit while I unlock the door?"

Belle nodded. Her legs felt stiff and too loose all at once, and wobbled beneath her when she stood. Rush had his arm around her as they walked up the drive, and let her lean against his chest as he fiddled the key in the lock. Belle nuzzled into Rush's throat, admiring the soft scratch of stubble and the warm, earthy scent of him, until her feet were swept out from under her.

No. Wait. Rush was picking her up and carrying her inside. Like a bride...and if she weren't too muzzy headed to fully appreciate how ironic the whole mess was, she might look down at the filthy gown and laugh.

For now, she just smiled and hid her face back in the crook of Rush's neck.

* * *

He was an idiot. A bloody, stupid, cowardly, fucking idiot. Rush didn't particularly believe in God, but he sure as fuck recognized a divine miracle: And he wasn't going to do anything like this to Belle ever again. It was all he could do not to cover her pale face with kisses when he set her in the passenger seat, mindful of the rabid journalists swarming in camera-distance around his Taurus. Well that, and he wasn't sure Belle could ever truly forgive him yet...

A _fucking_ idiot.

He sat Belle on the closed toilet lid and set to work running a bath. Making sure the water was warm without scalding flesh kept him busy for another minute or two, then he turned around. The fool girl was on her feet, swaying, as she struggled to unhook the buttons at her back. Rush smiled despite himself and wiped his hand dry on his jeans before he drew Belle into the circle of his arms. She clung to him so trustingly Rush couldn't keep from hugging her tighter as he unfastened the gown, until he had to push her away to let the dress pool around her feet.

No bra. Rush wasn't so much of a caveman that he gaped at her bare breasts, or the multitude of scars on her creamy skin. He tugged her panties off and Belle stood there naked as the day she was born in the middle of his bathroom, her blue eyes sparkling above the dark circles underlining them.

His little Belle was so strong it was breathtaking.

Belle slid into the tub with little urging. Rush grabbed a washcloth and a bottle of his own shampoo and soap and set to work washing away the last three days. He'd rolled up his sleeves, but the cotton fabric was still getting wet from how he was reaching into the water. At one point Belle's dripping hand came up and stroked the hair out of his face, and Rush looked at those too-blue eyes. Belle smiled. A pure, radiant smile he ached to kiss.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out instead. "I should have never done that to you. I-I didn't-I mean I don't ever want to hurt you, Belle, I knew better. I spent every fucking minute you sat there worrying over you and I still waited three fucking days. I just-I don't even know why the hell I waited so long, I-I guess I just wanted you to...to..."

"Give up?"

She didn't even sound surprised. _Fuck him_.

Belle's other little hand cupped his jaw, tugging him near so that his hips pressed uncomfortably against the tub, edge digging into his belly, but his forehead was pressed to hers. Her eyes were still doing that lovely, dancing-with-light thing and Rush nuzzled into her like an attention-starved cat. Without his permission, his fingers wound around one of her limp curls as she sighed, rubbing her nose against his.

"I forgive you, Nicholas Rush," Belle murmured soothingly, and wasn't that backwards, her soothing him? "You came for me in the end, didn't you?"

With a deep sigh, Rush closed his eyes. "Aye."

"Then we're okay," she paused. "Just...don't...shut me out, like that, again. Please?"

Rush threaded his fingers through the thick tresses at her nape, pressing a smiling kiss to her forehead. "Promise, sweetheart. Never again. Now turn around so I can wash your hair, hmm?"

Belle nearly went to sleep again with Rush's long fingers massaging the soap through her hair. Her books had described the "aftercare" aspect of a BDSM relationship to be one of the most important, and the gentle rubbing and occassional brush of fingers against her shoulders made Belle understand why.

The idea of having proven her devotion and being rewarded for it was an appealing one. The thought that Rush honestly understood she wasn't lying when she professed her love was even better.

And nothing was better than being helped out of the tub to stand on the mat, toweled off and having Doctor Nicholas Rush at her feet, patting each foot dry on his lap. He looked up at her and something had fallen away in his eyes. Like a lifted veil, a light shining through. Belle was naked in more than flesh before him, and he was bare to her.

Rush got to his feet, then, holding his arms open to Belle in an invitiation she readily accepted. Being in his arms was better than her fantasies could ever be. Especially when he pet the back of her head this way, cradling her close.

"Take me to bed?" she murmured against his shoulder.

"I'd love nothing more, sweetheart," Rush laughed softly, gently lifting her up in his arms. There was something odd, but nice, about being nude while he was still fully dressed down to his shoes. "But I'd rather you just rest tonight, aren't you tired?"

Belle hummed softly, sleepily. Rush just grinned and carried her to his bed, lying her on top of the covers. He toed off his shoes, stealing glances at the soft little beauty spread-eagled on his bed, eyes half shut and full lips curled in a satisfied smile.

He'd love to fuck her into oblivion. But she deserved to be spoiled tonight, kissed and praised and treasured. He peeled off his damp shirt and tossed it at the hamper, then lay down beside Belle, who seemed to be content to be one with the coverlet now.

"Can I call you Nicholas now?" she asked, blinking slowly.

Unable to resist anymore, Rush pressed a kiss to Belle's shoulder. Her skin was warm and pink and damp. Absolutely addictive. "Nick. Call me Nick, sweetheart."

"Nick..." Belle rolled the letters on her tongue as Rush kissed a set of three razor cuts on her bicep. "Nick. Those are my fifth scars, you know?"

Rush paused, laving the center line with his tongue. "Is that so? Which one was first, darling?"

Belle groped for one of his hands, then pressed his fingers against a thin white scar above her right knee.

"This one. I did it with a paring knife. It was the morning of my fifteenth birthday, my mum had been dead for two months. I was so tired of not feeling anything..."

Rush moved down the mattress until he could kiss the scar tenderly. He preceded to do the same to the raised scars on her calves, and the ugly burns she put on her feet whenever she found her father's cigarettes lying around unattended in an ashtray. Then he came back up to her thighs, kissing, licking, and nuzzling every scar and burn he could see. At first, Belle had tried to tell him the origin of each one. A disappointment here, a stress there, a sadness causing some, and an anger causing others. Then Rush-her Nick,-kissed the hollow of her hip bone, right by a scar she dug with that cracked bit of blue-and-white porcelain she used to have, and words fluttered from her throat.

It wasn't even necessarily erotic. Which it was, of course. Everything from the sight of Rush leaning over and worshipping her body to the feel of his long hair tickling her damp skin had her a boneless heap lying atop the coverlet. But it was the tenderness, the sweetness, of how he made each move, that was comforting and intimate without any sexual connotations at all.

But Belle could only be quiet for so long...

"Where did you live before coming to America? Where did you go to school?"

"Glasgow. Oxford." The replies were softly spoken, but Rush seemed reluctant to move his mouth and hands from her body. He planted four suckling kisses around her belly button.

"Why did you decide to be a teacher? Do you miss your family in Scotland?"

"Good benefits. No," Rush gave the slightest shake of his head, mouthing the underside of her breast a bit to eagerly, making Belle feel hot and her legs separate for Rush to crawl between.

"Have you ever been in love before?"

There was a long pause. And Belle's eyes fluttered open (when had they closed?) as the ends of Rush's long hair tickled her breasts as he came to lean above her, propped on his arms on either side of Belle. His dark brown eyes softened adoringly, and a warm smile brought out the laugh lines that Belle wanted dearly to kiss someday.

"I have now," Rush murmured, leaning down.

When there lips met in a slow kiss, Belle was remided of every story she'd ever read describing a kiss from one's True Love as being earth-shattering, mind-blowing. The greatest of joys. The purest of pleasure. Her kisses with Will had never come close to that. But this?

This was so much better than pretty words could describe.

* * *

It had been nearly a year since Rush tried to avoid watching a tiny, frumpily-dressed girl pat water distractingly off her blouse. Since Belle had meekly entered a physics professors office and applied for a position as his assistant. Now they were engaging in a very different contract: Getting married.

It was a simple courthouse ceremony, they had invited Moe French, but he refused to come.

Ruby and Dr. Hopper had shown up, though, Ruby thrusting a bouquet of red roses into Belle's hands and squeezing her tight. She then threatened to cut Rush into the blue-plate special at Granny's if he so much as raised a hand to Belle without her willing consent, and Rush was inclined to believe she would. Dr. Hopper wasn't nearly as aggressively defensive of Belle, but he did remind them that they could call him if they ever needed any help.

The wedding ended in a plain kiss, Belle wearing a dove-gray silk dress and Rush in a dark suit. Belle tossed the roses at Ruby, who grinned wolfishly at Hopper, (who looked equal parts nervous and pleased,) and then the new couple climbed into their car and headed for the woods for a weekend honeymoon. Rush still had to go to work on Monday, but from Friday night to Sunday evening, he was entirely devoted to Belle.

She had the scratches on her back from where she'd been fucked against a tree to prove it.

Her hands had been tied behind her back, behind the tree, with Rush's tie. He pushed her into one orgasm with his head under her skirt, (Belle thought about telling Ruby she hadn't been wearing knickers at her wedding, but then she'd never hear the end of it from her friend,) then denied her the second while he dropped his pants and hitched up her skirts, allowing her to wrap her legs around his waist as they joined together.

That time they came together, almost fully clothed in the middle of the woods less than twenty feet off a major hiking trail. It was amazing that no one caught them. It was even more amazing no one heard Belle scream in their rental cabin the rest of the weekend. Perhaps they were too polite to mention it?

Belle still had her own life: She volunteered at the library and met with Ruby and Ariel for lunch, tutored Henry with his maths, and once walked Dr. Hopper's dog Pongo for him while he recovered from a bad sprain. She had close, true friends and enjoyed her work at the library. Her father had yet to accept her husband but he wasn't as openly hostile as he used to be. Will was seeing a young lady named Anastasia McQueen these days, too, and Belle told him she was very, very happy to see him happy when they bumped into each other at Granny's. Because she was.

Rush's new assistant that came in after Belle left him soon after, but only because she was on maternity leave. Belle laughed about that one evening while Rush sat on the couch and she lay curled up at his side, Great Expectations open on her lap.

"You didn't ask her if she was pregnant? Or planned to be? You asked me that twice, Nick."

Rush set his notebook aside and bent down to kiss the top of her head, flipping the page for her. "You were special, sweetheart. You are always special to me."

It would have been a charmingly domestic scene if Belle weren't stripped naked wearing handcuffs.

Rush didn't simply ignore Belle during their games anymore, these days he enjoyed bestowing rewards and praise upon her promptly. Belle happily completed her daily tasks, be it as simple and common as laundry and cooking supper, or something more exotic, like keeping a bullet vibrator inside all day and being forbidden from coming until Rush was home, and even more happily accepted her reward for being a good girl.

But it was occassionally boring to be a good girl all the time.

Which is why the dead roach went on the bed and once Rush found it, he smirked, and put Belle over his lap to give her a solid paddling she felt for three delicious days after whenever she sat down.

Come to think of it, that was their version of domestic. And what was wrong with that if it was safe, sane, and consensual? Who decided "normal", anyway?

Every morning when he left for work, Rush grabbed his briefcase, and unless they were meeting for lunch, a brown paper bag Belle packed. They kissed at the front door, and maybe once more outside it. Then Rush drove off with a wave Belle returned from the porch.

Yes, this was their life. And it was a good one, even if it wasn't normal.

It was just what they needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's done...that was fun!
> 
> Thanks to every/anyone who read this, and for my next trick, I'll try to finish The Beastly Nobleman and the Fair Lady Belle before I properly start something else. :)


End file.
